42 U.S.C. § 285m–1 — National Deafness and Other Communication Disorders Program

(a) The Director of the Institute, advised by the Institute's advisory council, must set up a National Deafness and Other Communication Disorders Program. The Director must write a plan and send it to the Director of NIH, to start, grow, strengthen, and coordinate the Institute's work on hearing disorders (including tinnitus) and other communication problems — including disorders of hearing, balance, voice, speech, language, taste, and smell. The plan includes whatever comments and recommendations the Director thinks fit. The Director must review and update the plan regularly, and send any updates to the Director of NIH. (b) The Program's activities must include: (1) studying the causes, patterns, detection, treatment, and prevention of hearing and communication disorders, mainly through basic research in fields like anatomy, audiology, biochemistry, bioengineering, epidemiology, genetics, immunology, microbiology, molecular biology, neuroscience, otolaryngology, psychology, pharmacology, physiology, and speech and language pathology, and any other field that can help; (2) researching techniques — surgical, medical, and behavioral — and devices, including hearing aids and implanted devices, used to diagnose, treat, rehabilitate, and prevent these disorders; (3) researching prevention and early detection of hearing loss and speech and language problems (including stuttering), and researching how to stop these disorders from harming learning, while expanding referral and rehabilitation programs; (4) researching detection, treatment, and prevention of these disorders in the growing elderly population, while expanding rehabilitation programs to help them keep communicating well; (5) researching how environmental factors affect hearing and communication; and (6) building and supporting in-house programs on both the clinical and basic-science sides of these disorders.