By Laura N. Hubbard

Did you know May is Better Hearing and Speech Month?

Spreading the word about preventing hearing loss is important to CEA, so we collaborated with the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) to promote their public education campaign America: Tuned In Today… But Tuned Out Tomorrow?

In honor of the month, I sent my sister the link to ASHA’s delightful website for kids, teachers and parents, listentoyourbuds.org. My niece and nephew don’t yet have an MP3 player, but they do use headphones to watch a portable DVD player when traveling to Boston to visit their grandparents. The website offers lots of interactive activities to help reinforce the message.

Noise-Induced Hearing Loss can occur by listening to headphones at high volumes for extended periods of time . This loss happens gradually and painlessly over time and can go undetected until it’s too late .

According to a study commissioned by ASHA, more than half of high school students in the U.S. report having at least one symptom of hearing loss. By instilling a few listening guidelines early on in a child’s development we can change those statistics. Plus, it’s not too late to modify your own listening habits while enjoying your MP3 player during your morning commute.

Here are some simple steps to follow, and encourage our kids to follow, to protect our hearing:

1. Start by setting your volume control at a low setting.

2. Slowly increase the sound until you can hear it comfortably and clearly, without distortion.

3. Once you’ve reached your comfortable sound level, set the dial and leave it.

4. So you aren’t competing with outside noises, consider purchasing noise-cancelling or sound-isolating headphones or earphones.

5. Enjoy the music, DVD or podcast!

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This entry was posted on Friday, May 30th, 2008 at 3:28 pm and is filed under CE Accessories, CEA, In Vehicle CE. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.