YouTube Videos Encourage Kids to Protect Their Hearing
Rockville, MD - May 10, 2010 - Clark Teeple, a sophomore at Grand Haven High School in Grand Haven, Michigan, has been named the winner of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association's (ASHA) annual Better Hearing and Speech Month (BHSM) Song and Video Contest.
This marks the second year that ASHA has hosted a YouTube video contest to engage the public in innovative ways to observe and celebrate the BHSM observance that takes place every May. With the theme, "Protect Your Hearing ...You Need It For A Lifetime!", this year's nationwide contest was based on the healthy listening principles of ASHA's Listen To Your Buds campaign (www.listentoyourbuds.org), which teaches children how to use personal audio devices safely.
Protect Your Hearing is the title of Teeple's winning video. According to Teeple, he created the video to "make a difference in children's lives. I volunteer at a local elementary school, and I love to make movies. This contest was a perfect opportunity to combine my efforts to ensure all kids hear my message to protect their hearing."
Contest entries were judged on their originality, message, creativity, artistic merit, and expression of the theme. Second place was awarded to Sivan Schondorf, a speech-language pathologist in Los Angeles, California, and third place went to Grant Teeple, Clark Teeple's younger brother who is a 6th grader at White Pines Middle School in Grand Haven. The students in the Asperger Inclusion Program at Skyline High School Oakland, California, received an honorable mention.
"I am pleased to congratulate our impressive winners of this year's BHSM contest," says ASHA President Tommie L. Robinson Jr, PhD, CCC-SLP. "I am also pleased that the song and video contest is proving to be an innovative and engaging way of creating awareness of serious communication issues on the occasion of Better Hearing and Speech Month."
The winning videos can be found at www.asha.org/bhsm/2010-video-contest-winners2/ and will be featured on the Association's website.
About ASHA
ASHA is the national professional, scientific, and credentialing association for more than 140,000 audiologists, speech-language pathologists, and speech, language, and hearing scientists. 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.
About Better Hearing and Speech Month
Since 1927, the month of May has been recognized as Better Hearing and Speech Month (BHSM). BHSM is dedicated to raising awareness of communication disorders and the professions and services that can help address them. To learn more about the contest or the BHSM campaign, visit www.asha.org/bhsm.
