No Limits

Founded in 1996, No Limits teaches lower income deaf and hard-of-hearing children to speak, dream, and achieve their fullest potential through its nationally recognized theater arts program and after school educational center in Culver City. It is important to understand that while profoundly deaf, all of these children have cochlear implants or hearing aids, which restore much hearing, but they need help to identify sounds and learn what they mean. No Limits provides free services including 4 hours per week of individualized speech therapy, 2 hours of literacy classes, a requirement for parents to attend weekly educational sessions, access to an audiologist, and 4 hours of enrichment programs, none of which are provided by the school system. No Limits will use our grant of $12,310.82 to purchase 38 instruments including guitars, drums, xylophone, pianos, trumpets, saxophones, trombones, clarinets, flutes, violins, and cellos to create a music program. The goal of the music program is to help children develop more acute sound discrimination and become better speakers, as well as learn to play an instrument and appreciate music for the first time, and 50 children (ages 6-18) will have direct one-on-one music instruction each year. Additional benefits include enhanced cognitive development, improved reading ability and an increase in language and vocabulary. By listening to rhythms and melodies, deaf children learn about variations in pitch, duration, stress and intonation, which are cornerstones of speech. Research has shown that participation in a music program has a great impact on children that are deaf and hard-of-hearing, and the No Limits Music Lab will allow these children to gain essential musical experiences and play together as a band using their residual hearing.