History of CID

In 1914, Max Aaron Goldstein, MD, a St. Louis ear, nose and throat physician, set out to do what most people believed impossible: teach deaf children to talk. He had received postgraduate medical training in Europe, and in Vienna met a professor who was teaching profoundly deaf children to talk. This educational experience became the genesis for his dream to convince the world that congenitally deaf children could learn to speak intelligibly.

Dr. Goldstein began an aggressive campaign to pursue his dream when he opened Central Institute for the Deaf (CID), a place where doctors and teachers would work together to improve on ways to help deaf people, starting with children. Initially, he devoted two rooms of his medical office in St. Louis to educating deaf children and training teachers of the deaf. His services included oral deaf education for children, counseling, a hearing clinic, lipreading instruction and speech correction for children and adults. To his ongoing medical research, he added studies of deaf and hard of hearing children using early devices such as hearing tubes and ear trumpets within an oral deaf education setting.

Leaders from the academic, business and medical communities supported Dr. Goldstein’s dream and the first CID oral school was completed in 1916. By 1929, the school's reputation for success had led to burgeoning enrollment. A second building was added to house specialized soundproof laboratories as well as school educational classrooms and facilities to help deaf adults. Teachers measured deaf children's progress in response to new listening devices and educational strategies. Scientists were recruited from throughout the world to study the anatomy of animals' ears, the science of hearing devices, techniques for diagnosing deafness, the sound of deaf children's voices and related topics.

In 1931, CID's Teacher Training College affiliated with nearby Washington University, becoming the country’s first deaf education teacher training program to affiliate with a university. By 1947, CID offered graduate programs in deaf education, communication sciences and a new profession, audiology, which CID was instrumental in developing.

From its founding, CID built an international reputation as a research and demonstration school and as the research home of the emerging field of audiology. CID’s parent-infant program, begun in 1958, was the first program of its kind and a model for programs throughout the world. In 1981, CID's landmark EPIC Study proved that highly individualized, ability-grouped oral deaf education significantly increased achievement of deaf school children. In the 1980s and 90s, CID educational researchers produced a variety of educational tests, curricula and guides, including the TAGS, GAEL, SPINE, CID Phonetic Inventory and ESP kits and Questions Teachers Ask. Many of these instruments are still used in the education of deaf children in schools across the country and worldwide.

In 1995, CID introduced the SPICE, an auditory training curriculum for children with hearing aids and cochlear implants. It has since been used to help deaf children in 33 countries and all U.S. states. In 2001, CID’s Baby Talk, touted as a long-awaited “owner’s manual” for parents of newly diagnosed infants, was published to address a growing need as a result of state hospital screening laws spreading across the country. Learn about CID publications HERE.

In 2000, CID completed a new campus featuring a specially designed “quiet school,” built for the oral deaf education of children, and state-of-the-art research laboratories in the Harold W. Siebens Hearing Research Center.

In February of 2003, CID entered into an historic agreement to formalize ties with Washington University, its School of Medicine and Department of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery. Under the terms of the agreement, Washington University School of Medicine assumed ownership and governance of several of CID's programs, creating CID at Washington University School of Medicine. Central Institute for the Deaf (CID) remains separate and financially independent from the University, which continues to operate CID-developed research, adult clinic and graduate education programs on the CID campus at 4560 Clayton Avenue in St. Louis, Missouri.

Today, Central Institute for the Deaf and CID at Washington University School
of Medicine continue a unique combination of education, research and clinical
and community service to benefit children and adults who are deaf and hearing-impaired. Here, working audiologists, teachers and scientists serve as graduate program faculty and graduate students gain experience in real-world settings, including the CID oral school. Work continues on the most progressive and promising techniques and technologies. Deaf and hearing-impaired school children benefit from a state-of-the-art facilities and from a staff on the leading edge of knowledge in deaf education, pediatric audiology and rehabilitative techniques.

CID Mission