(Rockville, MD - August 3, 2009) BrainLine.org, The Chicago Tribune, and Radio Disney have won the 2009 Media Awards of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), the organization announced today.
ASHA represents more than 135,000 speech language pathologists (SLPs), audiologists, and speech, language, and hearing scientists. Its Committee on Honors chose the winners. They will receive their awards at ASHA's 2009 Convention in New Orleans this November.
BrainLine.org, a service of WETA, the public TV and radio station in Washington, DC, is a national multimedia project that offers information and resources about preventing, treating, and living with traumatic brain injury (TBI). BrainLine.org regularly highlights the contributions made by SLPs and audiologists to persons with TBI. For example, BrainLine's Ask The Expert monthly column has featured an ASHA staff member answering questions about TBI;ASHA-produced podcasts, videos, and articles are available on the BrainLine site;and BrainLine prominently featured ASHA's Better Hearing and Speech Month in their e-newsletter in May.
The Chicago Tribune, the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region, is one of the largest newspapers in America by circulation. In November 2008, the Tribune published a feature article on ASHA's Listen To Your Buds campaign that teaches very young children to practice safe listening habits when using personal audio technology. The article preceded a "Buds" concert held in Chicago the same month. The Tribune article subsequently appeared in many newspapers across the country over the course of just a few weeks.
Radio Disney, available via satellite and a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company, is a radio network that broadcasts music and other content targeted at children and young children. Radio Disney aired and independently produced 30-second public service announcements highlighting ASHA's Listen To Your Buds campaign, enabling its safe listening message to reach thousands of children, young teenagers, and their parents.
"Our media award winners this year used their specific medium—whether the Internet, print, or radio to educate diverse segments of the public about human communication issues in ways that helped ensure that effective communication, a human right, truly is accessible and achievable by all," ASHA President Sue Hale says. "We appreciate their good work and are pleased to recognize it."
