Children have always been an important part of the practice of the Owens Ear Center. Since Dr. Owens' experience in the early 1970's with Dr. Bill House, engineer Jack Urban and the very first cochlear implant patient, Dr. Fred had a dream to bring hearing to deaf children and to open a school to help mainstream these children into the school system as speaking and hearing students and to provide screening for newborns and young children to help get them help for their hearing loss as early in life as possible. Other children's services, such as tympanotomy and tubes, have been provided for multiple thousands of young patients.

THE CHILDREN'S HEARING INSTITUTE OF TEXAS

The Children's Hearing Institute of Texas is a part of Owens Ear Center which strives to provide services specifically tailored to our young patients. Before a newborn leaves the hospital, it is required by state law that a screening test be performed for hearing loss. Should hearing loss be identified, follow up testing is required. Owens Ear Center provides follow up hearing evaluations so that children who might have hearing loss can be identified as early in life as possible. If hearing loss is detected later, even months later, then these children will develop language more slowly and possibly have other learning disabilities which could have been averted had the parents known earlier of the hearing loss. The institute also works to provide affordable resources for these children and their families.

THE HEARING SCHOOL OF THE SOUTHWEST

Dr. Fred Owens founded the Hearing School of the Southwest in 2002, and serves as the President of the Board. The Hearing School of the Southwest is the only school of its type in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, striving to provide expert educational, speech pathology, and audiological support to children with hearing impairment who have undergone cochlear implantation or have been fitted with hearing aids. The school is a non-profit institution, and represents one of Dr. Fred's lifelong dreams of helping to provide hearing to children stricken with hearing loss.