Appearance to follow year when experts said parental concerns about misuse of personal audio technology were behind calls for youth hearing screenings and poll showed parents want unsafe listening recognized as major health issue.
Rockville, MD - January 07, 2013 - Strengthening its commitment to preventing noise-induced hearing loss, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) is bringing its Listen To Your Buds public education campaign to the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) January 8–11.
As a Digital Health Summit exhibitor, ASHA also joins the show's MommyTech Summit conference to convey how parents can help kids, tweens, and teens use personal audio technology safely.
Even minimal hearing loss can affect children's social interaction, communication skills, behavior, emotional development, and academic performance. As young people's use of personal audio technology like headphones and iPods continues to rise—and in the wake of technology gift-giving and increased daily technology time—ASHA recommends parents monitor their child's usage and volume levels and model safe listening behaviors. Tips are available at https://www.listentoyourbuds.org/.
Eighty-four percent of parents are concerned that misuse of personal audio technology damages the hearing of children, according to results of an online poll [PDF] commissioned by ASHA last May. Parents also show overwhelming support for hearing screenings for tweens and teens—71% for 10- to 11-year-olds and 67% for 16- to 17-year-olds—according to a University of Michigan Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health released last December.
ASHA's exhibit booth, #71108 in the Living in Digital Times area at the Sands Venetian Expo Center, will feature information about hearing loss prevention, warning signs of hearing damage, and resources. Las Vegas audiologist Dr. Daniel Fesler, CCC-A, and well-known Buds Coalition Musician Oran Etkin will be on hand; Etkin will perform one of his popular interactive safe listening concerts.
ASHA proudly counts the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) among the Buds' dozen dedicated sponsors; they joined forces in 2007. "As a longtime supporter of the Listen To Your Buds youth campaign, CEA represents companies that create audio technologies for listeners of all ages," says Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of CEA. "We promote products, like noise-canceling and sound-isolating headphones, that help minimize outside sounds, and volume-controlled headphones that give control to parents of young children. New innovations are still to come that will help us practice and teach safe listening so that we can all listen for a lifetime.'"
To find out more about using personal audio technology safely, visit https://www.listentoyourbuds.org/.
About the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
ASHA, https://www.asha.org/, is the national professional, scientific, and credentialing association for more than 150,000 audiologists, speech-language pathologists, and speech, language, and hearing scientists in the United States and internationally. Audiologists specialize in preventing and assessing hearing and balance disorders as well as providing audiologic treatment including hearing aids. Speech-language pathologists identify, assess, and treat speech and language problems including swallowing disorders.
