ASHA’s “Buds In The Schools Week”: Teaching Kids To Enjoy Technology Safely

By Guest Blogger, Greg Weimann, Public Relations Manager for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA)

With support from CEA, thousands of Washington, DC area elementary school children had the opportunity recently to participate in the inaugural “Buds In The Schools Week”, a new iteration of the American Speech-Language-Hearing-Association’s (ASHA) award-winning Listen To Your Buds campaign which teaches children how to use personal audio devices safely.

Bud’s music coalition member Billy Jonas reminds students to turn down the volume on their iPod or MP3 player

Debuting last month in school systems throughout the Washington, D.C. area, “Buds In The Schools Week” engaged students in a wide array of interactive in-school events. Officially designated by the District of Columbia and Montgomery County, MD, “Buds In The Schools Week” activities included concerts with official Bud’s coalition musicians, Buds-themed morning announcements lesson plans and coloring pages, and educational classroom presentations related to hearing safely offered by a campaign sponsor The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD).

The event generated strong media coverage over the course of several days. CEA complemented the effort by disseminating audio PSAs about the campaign’s safe listening message in regional radio outlets.

By all reports, the campaign’s safe listening message reached first and second graders and resonated well with school staff. For example, one Northern Virginia elementary school principal wrote that the Buds Week safe listening message was “An extremely valuable one for our students to have heard…and I believe that many of our students have not only received it but have also retained it, something that will surely steer them well academically and their whole lives.”

ASHA is grateful to CEA and its members for their continued support of the Listen To Your Buds campaign—it has been a strong and valued campaign supporter since 2007. In that time CEA has been instrumental in helping to spread the campaign’s safe listening messages through several initiatives including a Gary Shapiro podcast, the production and dissemination of consumer PSAs, producing the new Listening For A Lifetime safety brochure which is distributed through both CEA’s manufacturing and retail members as well as CEA’s Web site DigitalTips.org.

Since 2008, thousands of students nationwide have attended a “Listen To Your Buds” safe listening concert.

The ASHA–CEA alliance is more important than ever given the results of a recent Kaiser Foundation study that raises concerns about children’s hearing and communication development.

The next stop for the Buds will be the “City of Brotherly Love.” Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter has already designated November 14-20, 2010 “Buds In The Schools Week”. So if you live there, stay tuned for possible Buds Week activities in your school district come fall. For more about this upcoming “Buds” event, to share the campaign’s message, and to take a pledge to protect your child’s—and your own hearing—visit www.listentoyourbuds.org.

This winter, ASHA will be making our fourth consecutive appearance at CES. The experience is always extremely positive with attendees not only expressing interest in and support for the campaign, but also engaging our member audiologists in our exhibit booth with questions about hearing health and sound. We look forward to seeing you there!