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(Rockville, MD - September 26, 2007) Local audiologist, Anne Marie Tharpe, PhD, Professor in the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences (DHSS) at Vanderbilt University and Associate Director of Education for the National Center for Childhood Deafness and Family Communication at the Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center for Otolaryngology and Communication Sciences in Nashville, Tennessee attended the Summit Awards Dinner of the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) in Washington, D.C. last night to help honor The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA).
ASHA received the Summit Award for its Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) campaign which promotes hearing screening of newborns at birth. The ASAE Summit Award is highest honor for associations that implement innovative community-based programs. This award recognizes the very best efforts put forth by associations across the country in areas such as public education and information, economic development, business and social innovation, skills training/development and civic and volunteer activities. ASHA was one of six 2007 Summit Award winners who were chosen from more than 250 national entries received in the Associations Advance America Awards program this year.
Over the course of the EHDI campaign, the reported number of newborns screened at birth has increased from 22% in 1999 to roughly 95% today. In 1988, the average age that children with congenital hearing loss were identified was over 3 years of age, with many children not being identified until 5 or 6 years of age. Today, it is now less than 3 months and dropping. The number of states that have laws or statewide voluntary programs for the early detection and intervention of hearing loss has grown from 11 to 45 states plus the District of Columbia.
ASHA, located in Rockville, Maryland, is the professional, scientific, and credentialing association for more than 127,000 audiologists, speech-language pathologists, and speech, language, and hearing scientists in the United States and internationally. For more information on speech, language, and hearing disorders, consumers can log on to ASHA's Web site or call 1-800-638-TALK.
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