(COKE-lee-uh) The auditory portion of the inner ear consisting of fluid-filled channels containing the hair cells. The cochlea is shaped like a small snail shell and normally consists of two and a half turns. The cochlea converts incoming sound waves from the middle ear into electrical signals and transmits these signals to the auditory nerve.

See Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technologies.

A coalition of national, regional, and community-based organizations which advocates for legislative and regulatory safeguards that will ensure full access for deaf and hard of hearing people to evolving high speed broadband, wireless and other Internet protocol (IP) technologies.

See Central Nervous System.

Displaying text of spoken words, often placed at the bottom of movies or television screens. This allows a hard of hearing viewer to follow the dialogue (even though he can’t hear it) and the action of a program simultaneously. Closed captioning may be turned on or off at will by the person watching the TV.

A hearing loss that can be detected by normal audiological testing using the conventional test frequencies between 125 Hz and 8,000 Hz.