Turning Noise into Calling: Ava Hoskins ‘25 and the How We Hear Scholarship

Turning Noise into Calling: Ava Hoskins ‘25 and the How We Hear Scholarship

It’s not that she can’t hear; it’s actually that she hears too much.

Ava (Martinez) Hoskins ’25 has Auditory Processing Disorder (APD), a condition in which the brain struggles to distinguish between background noise and important sounds. Because of this, school was difficult from a young age—someone walking down the hallway demanded the same attention as a teacher speaking at the front of the classroom.

“I always heard the school lights buzzing,” she said. “But of course, no one else hears that because they just tune it out.”

After dozens of doctor visits, Hoskins was finally diagnosed with APD, a condition that affects about 5% of school-aged children but is often misdiagnosed as ADHD or hearing loss. With the correct diagnosis, her family was finally able to advocate for her needs. Teachers better understood her challenges, and Hoskins began using a Frequency Modulation (FM) system—an earpiece connected directly to the teacher’s microphone. Combined with learning and listening strategies designed for APD, she began to adjust, succeed, and thrive academically.

Determined that other students with APD would not feel as lost as she once did, Hoskins took action early. In eighth grade, she founded How We Hear, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students with APD and raising awareness among educators and families.

That passion carried into her time at Malone, where she became the first current student to establish an endowed scholarship. The How We Hear Scholarship supports education majors and requires recipients to learn about APD through the organization’s resources and reflect on how they will apply that knowledge in their future classrooms.

Now married to Andrew Hoskins *24 and a mother to her daughter, Lucia, Hoskins continues to advocate for APD awareness and hopes to host educational seminars for parents in the future.

“The goal has always been to spread the word,” she said. “If you don’t know about it, you can’t help!”

You can learn more about How We Hear and Hoskin’s ongoing work in APD awareness at www.howwehear.org. **This story first appeared in the 2026 Malone University Messenger. If you didn't receive yours, you can update your mailing information here -- https://www.malone.edu/alumni/mailing-list-and-alumni-news/**