There are two types of hearing loss, explains Judith Bergeron; “’Big D” which is profound deafness and “Little D” which is hearing impaired.” Bergeron — “Judi” to her patients — has been ‘”Big D” deaf since she was a teenager, so she brings a unique personal empathy and insight to the hearing clinic she and her husband David founded in Magnolia. Now going into its 10th year, the Beauport Hearing Clinic brings state-of-the-art concierge hearing health care to some 500 patients on Cape Ann.
Bergeron, who chose to use her own experience with hearing loss to help others, is, among other credentials, a licensed Hearing Instrument Specialist and is National Board Certified in Hearing Instrument Sciences. She will soon be joined at the clinic by her son, Trevor Kaity, who will train under his mother, and, she says, “eventually succeed her.” To speak with Bergeron is to realize that the science of hearing is enormously complex, and its technology has come a long way since 1878 when a young Alexander Graham Bell — then a teacher of the deaf — inadvertently invented the telephone while on his way to creating the world’s first hearing aid.
Today, says Bergeron, hearing aids have gone digital, and there are lots to choose from. Many of them, like drugstore reading glasses, are inexpensively available at retail outlets. But just as reader glasses are limited to magnification, store-bought hearing aids are limited in what they can do.
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