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NIDCD Information Clearinghouse

How Can I Contact the NIDCD Information Clearinghouse?

The Clearinghouse provides information and resources for health professionals, patients, industry, and the public. To obtain information, call the Clearinghouse Monday through Friday between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. eastern standard time. Leave a message to request publications at other times.

Voice: (800) 241-1044
TTY: (800) 241-1055

Or, write:
NIDCD Information Clearinghouse
1 Communication Avenue
Bethesda, MD 20892-3456

Send e-mail to:

What Does the NIDCD Information Clearinghouse Provide?

Disorders of hearing, balance, taste, smell, voice, speech, and language affect more than one in ten Americans. To broaden the dissemination of information about disorders of human communication, the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) established the NIDCD Information Clearinghouse in 1991. The Clearinghouse provides the following services to help health professionals, patients, people in industry, and the public locate health information and resources.

  • Information Service. Information specialists respond to written and telephone inquiries by identifying resources, materials, and organizations that can best answer the inquirer’s questions.
  • Publications Development. The Clearinghouse produces and distributes health-related materials such as directories, information packets, fact sheets, and database searches about human communication disorders. The Clearinghouse also develops new materials to fill information gaps.
  • Reference Database. The Clearinghouse maintains a database of references to brochures, books, articles, fact sheets, organizations, and hard-to-find educational materials on deafness and communication disorders. The database contains citations, abstracts, and availability information for these materials; it is a unique collection of materials for the public, health professionals, and people in industry who need to locate information about deafness and disorders of communication.

What Topics Does the NIDCD Information Clearinghouse Cover?

The Clearinghouse is a national resource center that collects, develops, disseminates, and coordinates the vast amount of information, materials, and resources in the following areas:

Hearing--normal structure and function of the auditory system; diseases and disorders of the ear including hereditary and other forms of congenital deafness such as Waardenburg syndrome and Usher syndrome, sudden deafness, noise-induced hearing loss, ototoxicity, presbycusis, tinnitus, otitis media, otosclerosis, and AIDS-related hearing impairment; hearing aids, cochlear implants, vibrotactile aids, assistive devices, and screening methods.

Balance--normal structure and function of the vestibular system; disorders and diseases including Meniere’s disease, positional vertigo, vestibular neuronitis, and acoustic neurinoma resulting in vertigo, dizziness, and dysequilibrium.

Smell--normal structure and function of the olfactory system; disorders of smell resulting in anosmia (loss of sense of smell), hyposmia (reduced smell function), and paraosmia (distortion of sense of smell).

Taste--normal structure and function of the gustatory system; taste disorders resulting in ageusia (loss of sense of taste), hypogeusia (reduced taste function), and dysgeusia (distortion of sense of taste).

Voice--normal structure and function of the vocal tract; processes of voice production; disorders of the voice such as laryngeal nodules, polyps and neoplasms, contact ulcers, spasmodic dysphonia, vocal tremor, and vocal cord paralysis resulting in hoarseness and weakness of the voice.

Speech--normal structure and function of the speech tract; processes of speech production; disorders such as stuttering and neurogenic and developmental speech disorders resulting in dysfluency, dysarthria, and misarticulation; speech of persons who are hearing-impaired; dysphagia; and augmentative and alternative modes of communication.

Language--normal processes of language development and production; language disorders such as specific language impairment and aphasia; and language of persons who are deaf.