To the editor:

I am writing because I would like to inform your readers of a valuable service to Americans coping with hearing loss: the Captioned Media Program.

The program has been lending captioned videos to the public free of charge for many years. The only requirement is that a person with hearing loss be in the audience.

One out of every 10 Americans has a permanent hearing loss. Nationwide, there are approximately 28 million Americans with hearing impairments, according to statistics compiled by the National Institute of Deafness.

The Captioned Media Program collection includes over 4,000 titles covering a wide array of academic topics from arithmetic to zoology, as well as numerous titles dealing with travel, hobbies, child rearing, selecting an attorney and many other practical subjects. The program is also implementing collections of classic movies, black history, parenting and deafness which are circulated along with the above-mentioned academic collections. A catalog of these materials along with other information may be reviewed on the Web at www.cfv.org.

This program is federally funded and is open to all Americans with any degree of hearing loss. The program can be contacted by calling (800) 237-6213 (voice) or (800) 237-6819 (TTY for the deaf); by fax at (800) 538-5636; or by e-mail at info@cfv.org.

JEANETTE HUDSON, CMP Depository Manager

Missouri School for the DeafFulton