Interview with David Evangelista, Director, Health Programs, Special Olympics, Inc.

Topic: Special Olympics Healthy Hearing Program

Editorial note: This interview was conducted in a different format than our typical interviews. Our Associate Editor, Kristi Albers, corresponded with Mr. David Evangelista, Director, Health Programs of Special Olympics, to learn more about the important work they are doing for athletes with hearing loss. Additional collaboration to Kristi's questions was provided by Gilbert R. Herer, Ph.D., CCC-A, Founder & Senior Global Advisor, Healthy Hearing Program, Special Olympics.

KRISTI ALBERS: Since the inception of the Healthy Hearing program in 1999, what has the success been in identifying athletes with hearing loss that had not yet been identified?

DAVID EVANGELISTA: Special Olympics (SO) Healthy Hearing Program has identified a striking range of hearing loss, 18-38% (average of 20.5%), among athletes with intellectual disability who have had their hearing tested at SO events over the past 9 years. This range of hearing loss for athletes is striking in a number of ways.

• It is consistently detected at events worldwide, thereby showing that a country's health care system does not necessarily have an impact on the hearing status of its citizens with intellectual disability.
  
  
• It reflects more than 5 times the hearing loss that is found in the USA for the same age group of 18 through 50 years!
  
  
• And for the most part, these losses were previously undetected, un-served or under-treated!

What is also striking is that 85% of the athletes' hearing losses are due to middle ear problems. These losses are mostly reversible with medical treatment. The other 15% of losses are identified as sensorineural in nature. These athletes' permanent hearing losses can be helped significantly by hearing aids.

ALBERS: Communication is a crucial part in any athlete's training and competition, and we know healthy hearing is crucial to effective communication. In what ways has this program impacted the athletes, coaches and families?

EVANGELISTA: Athletes, as well as their coaches and families, report that once the athletes' hearing losses are treated and improved by medical or audiological interventions, their world changes for the better! They show immediate improvement in their abilities to understand others and to speak to them. Their self confidence improves tremendously. These behavioral improvements have a very positive impact on the athletes as well as their families. And, they are much easier to coach because they hear and follow directions better. The auditory world is now available to them, which brings with it a myriad of educational and social opportunities. These positive behavior changes for athletes with intellectual disability (ID), due to better hearing, also improve the perceptions of others about their intellectual abilities.

ALBERS: Is the Healthy Hearing program implemented in all regional Special Olympic events also?

EVANGELISTA: The Healthy Hearing (HH) Program is active currently in 6 of 7 SO Regions worldwide. This includes North America, Europe Eurasia, East Asia, Asia Pacific, Middle East/North Africa, and Africa. The 7th region, Latin America, will start the development of HH Program in 2009 following a leadership training program for volunteers to be conducted at the 2009 Special Olympics World Winter Games in Boise, Idaho. Currently, HH programs are active in 46 US states and 58 countries.

ALBERS: The persons testing the hearing, are they all volunteers involved with your program?

EVANGELISTA: The HH Program depends upon volunteers from the professions of audiology, speech-language pathology, otolaryngology and special education to conduct the hearing screening and testing at SO events. Individuals from these professions in states and countries become volunteer HH Clinical Directors (CD) by participating in a leadership training program sponsored by the international Special Olympics organization. They then organize and conduct HH screening/testing activities at their respective state/country events. These HH CDs train volunteers to help them conduct HH events using the HH Manual of Guidelines which can be found on SO's website (www.specialolympics.org). In the USA, these volunteers are often audiology doctoral students and other graduate students from universities in the event's region. They participate alongside audiologists and other practicing professionals from the event's area who also volunteer their time to help the SO HH Program serve the athletes with ID. The integration of doctoral and graduate students into the volunteer matrix is critical. This helps to ensure that the next generation of professionals, in this case hearing and speech professionals, understand how to address the needs of individuals with intellectual disabilities in their communities.

ALBERS: If someone would like to donate to the program, get involved or has an athlete they would like tested - where should we direct them to?

EVANGELISTA: Persons who wish to get involved with the HH Program in their state should contact the SO state program, and ask to speak to the person responsible for the Healthy Athletes (HA) Program. The HA person will direct the caller to the lead volunteer HH Clinical Director in the SO organization for more specific information about volunteering for HH.

For information about professional activities related to HH, contact the program's Founder and Senior Global Advisor at:

Gilbert R. Herer, Ph.D. CCC-A
Director Emeritus, Children's Hearing & Speech Center
Children's National Medical Center
Professor of Pediatrics
George Washington University
Washington, DC
Email: gherer@cnmc.org

For information about volunteering at national or international SO HH events, contact HH's SO Manager at:

Martin Wisor
Manager of Healthy Hearing and Fit Feet
Special Olympics, Inc.
Email: mwisor@specialolympics.org

Persons that wish to donate to the Healthy Hearing program should direct their donations to the following:

Steve Scott
Special Olympics Inc
1133 19th Street, NW
12th Floor
Washington, DC 20036
NOTE: Please designate that the donation is for the exclusive use of the Healthy Hearing program.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION TO CONSIDER

1. As important as it is to detect the average 20.5% of SO athletes with ID who have hearing losses, it is as important to identify the 79.5% who have normal hearing. This information for those with normal hearing is quite valuable to their coaches and families, in terms of expectations for communication and interactions between the athletes and the society within which they function. It also establishes a baseline record from which to judge any future perceived or actual changes in the athletes' hearing.
   
   
2. Although the HH Program delivers its services following the public health model of screen, identify and refer, it should be noted that occasionally it does provide audiology intervention services on-site at certain events. These interventions involve conducting hearing aid evaluations/fittings, making ear molds for hearing aid use and providing minor repairs of hearing aids. Usually these services are provided at large national or international SO multi-day events. For example, the SO 2007 World Summer Games in Shanghai, China spanned a 6-day period. The HH Program had 6 hearing test booths, of which 2 were large and allowed for the conduct of hearing aid evaluations/fittings. Hearing aid measurement equipment and software were on-site, as were ear mold fabrication material and supplies. A cadre of audiologists, expert in hearing aid evaluations, fitted 64 athletes from throughout the world with hearing aids over the 6 day period. This on-site service was made possible through the generosity of the following companies who donated a total of 120 hearing aids: Oticon, Siemens, and Hear The World Foundation sponsored by Phonak.
   
   AudiologyOnline thanks Mr. Evangelista for his time in providing information to us about the Special Olympics Healthy Hearing program. For more information about the program, readers are encouraged to contact the resources listed above, and to visit www.specialolympics.org. Additionally, this interview was used as the basis for the following informative consumer article about the program: healthyhearing.com/hearing_library/article_content.asp?article_id=864.