Voices
to be Heard Yard Sale - May 28
The Warren Center for
Communication & Learning is seeking
donations, volunteers and business sponsorships for the fourth
annual yard sale to benefit the Voices to be Heard program.
The yard sale will be held from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday,
May 28, 2005 in the Warren Center parking lot at 175 Union Street,
Bangor.
Voices to be Heard is
a program which teaches the deaf how to listen and speak with
the aid of an amplification device such as
a hearing aid or cochlear implant. It is the first auditory/oral
program in Maine. Its younger “graduates” now are schooled
with little or no “special attention” in their regular
classrooms; adults are able to interact with a world in a way they
may have thought lost to them.
The Warren Center, originally the Bangor Regional Speech and Hearing
Center, provides a complete range of audiology and speech-language
pathology services for children and adults. Over the last forty
years, the Warren Center has seen thousands of clients and strives
to give the best, most professional, friendly, client-centered
care to people of all ages.
Fund raisers such as the yard sale allow us to purchase much-needed
materials for our programs for children. In the past yard sale
funds have been used to buy new books, a new computer and a variety
of learning games and educational materials for Voices and other
programs.
For more information about the Warren Center, the Voices to be
Heard program or the yard sale, please call the Warren Center at
941-2850.
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Adventures
in Radio
Warren
Center administrative director Mary Poulin with Carol Higgins
of Senior Talk at the WVOM studios in Bangor |
Warren Center staffers are making their mark on the local radio
dial.
In February, audiologist
Dr. Amanda Samoluk was interviewed on “Maine
in the Morning,” WVOM’s talk show with George Hale and
Ric Tyler.
The two interviewers asked
her about audiology and the hearing aid services the Center provides.
They also talked about the Warren Center’s
Regional Hearing Aid Bank (ReHAB). The interview took place on a
Wednesday and was held at Dysart’s restaurant.
In March, Mary Poulin,
the Warren Center’s administrative
director, was interviewed by Carol Higgins for the stations “Senior
Talk” program. The half-hour program covered a wide range of
topics about the center, including its history, the number of programs
it provides to the community, and upcoming events at the Center.
Higgins is the director of communications at the Eastern Agency
on Aging, a local nonprofit that serves seniors and their families
in Hancock, Penobscot, Piscataquis and Washington counties. WVOM
is a talk-radio station and can be found at 103.9 on the FM dial.
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Regional
Hearing Aid Bank Update
The Regional Hearing Aid Bank (ReHAB) has been the recipient of
some amazing generosity, lately, but could still use your help.
The program received a $9000 donation from the Rite Aid Foundation
last year, which allowed the audiologists to provide hearing aids
to dozens of people on the waiting list.
Last year, the Town of
Hermon gave the Warren Center $450 to provide a hearing aid for
a Hermon resident. They repeated their generosity
this year, and now the Warren Center has the funds to give hearing
aids to two qualified Hermon residents. If you know anyone from Hermon
who needs a hearing aid but cannot afford it, please call us at the
Warren Center. We’d love to help!
The Regional Hearing Aid Bank (ReHAB) provides refurbished behind-the-ear
(BTE) hearing aids for people who cannot otherwise afford them. The
price of a hearing aid now starts at around $700.00 and can exceed
$4,000.00 for high-end digital models. For many in need, the cost
of even basic hearing aids is beyond reach. The ReHAB program addresses
this community need by making hearing aids and related support services
available to qualified adults in Eastern and Central Maine.
The program is dependent
upon the donation of used hearing aids. BTE models are refurbished,
and as funds allow, placed with a needy
individual from the Center’s waiting list. In-the-ear aids,
which cannot be re-used, are sent to a recycling facility and the
Center receives a small monetary credit which goes to help cover
costs of the program.
If you have hearing aids that you no longer use, please consider
mailing them to the Warren Center at 175 Union Street in Bangor.
The Warren Center is a 501 (c)(3) organization, so all donations
are tax-deductible to the extent the law allows.
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Notes
from the Program Director
Can you believe it? Summer
is a mere month away. School will be out and the beach will be
open, kids will have 10 weeks to play,
relax, and unfortunately, forget much of what was covered in the
classroom this past school year. Recent educational research has
shown that it takes the first month to six weeks of the next school
year for kids to re-learn the skills that they possessed when they
left school in June. This is true of all students, not just those
who struggle in the classroom. Parents are their child’s first
teacher, and as I am learning on my second trip through junior high,
this does not end the day they leave for kindergarten. Some activities
that could be encouraged for the summer can be fun as well as educational
are:
--Check out your community’s
summer reading program. Most classroom teachers as well as Speech
Pathologists have a list of
great books to practice new skills and solidify others during the
long summer break. Many of the area libraries sponsor fun activities
to encourage reading. Most programs also welcome non-readers. This
is a great way to increase vocabulary and to create life-long learners.
--Bring your child and a calculator to the grocery store to practice
math and problem solving. The concept of compare and contrast is
easy to explain and demonstrate when trying to determine which kind
of cereal is the better buy.
--If your family takes a vacation that involves an overnight stay,
make lists of items to pack for the trip, and then sort the list
by category, such as types of clothing, toiletries, or where in your
house the item is found.
--Encourage your child to start a summer journal to practice writing
skills and then on a rainy day, make time to read excerpts and discuss
memories and past adventures.
--Ask a grandparent or
other relative to become your child’s
pen pal. Letter writing or e-mails are great ways to practice those
keyboarding skills.
We have all heard the
adage “If you rest, you’ll rust”,
mostly used to maintain memory skills in the fight against dementia
and other age-related disorders. Who would have thought that we could
use the same thought for kids on summer vacation? I hope that everyone
has a fun, educational, and safe summer.
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Ask the
Audiologists
By Warren Center Audiologists Dr. Amanda Samoluk and Kim Starkey
How should you
approach your child’s first days of
wearing hearing aids? What should you do when problems arise?
Be positive, happy, and
firm. Your child will take his or her emotional cues from you.
At first, placing earmolds in your child’s ear
is going to be strange for you and your child, and you may feel fear
or frustration yourself. It’s important, however, not to share
these feelings with your child, but to focus on the good that you
expect the hearing aid to do.
A child will often accept the earmolds willingly in as little as
a week. It helps to make sure that the child is rewarded by experiencing
sound as the aid is applied, so be sure to talk with your child as
you do it.
If a child pulls out the earmold, you need to calmly yet firmly
replace it. Start using the hearing aids at a time when you know
that your audiologist or therapist will be available to take calls
and offer help if you need it.
Many parents find that
it helps to keep a diary of the child’s
reactions to sound. It will help you to see the benefit your child
gets from the hearing aids, and make any difficulties feel more worthwhile.
How can I help my child participate in conversations?
There are often situations where it is very difficult for a deaf
or hard-of-hearing person to keep up in a group conversation. Even
very capable hearing adults need help at these times. A conversation
with one or two persons or more is manageable for a deaf or hard-of-hearing
child if and when certain guidelines are followed:
- More than one person should not speak at a time
- Speakers should speak clearly in a well-modulated voice
- Speakers should turn toward the person being spoken to, as this
gives a visual clue to the deaf or hard-of-hearing person as to
the direction of the conversation
Parents must think not only of the above dynamics, but also logistics
to make it easier for the child to listen and speak, including appropriate
lighting, round dining table, etc.
Remember that you or the
deaf or hard-of-hearing child needs to teach these rules to everyone.
They are not trying to be difficult;
they’re changing a lifelong behavior, which takes time. You
or your child may have to coach them when they forget. Patience and
a sense of humor will help.
Parents should try not to automatically interpret for their child;
this indicates to the child that others do not understand him. It
is helpful for the deaf or hard-of-hearing child to develop assertive
skills and be able to ask people to speak more slowly and distinctly,
to not cover their faces, or to look at them when they speak.
It’s extremely important
to take the time and effort to make sure that the deaf child is
clued in and made part of conversations.
Deaf and hard-of-hearing adults often report that they felt isolated
in the midst of their families, when conversations flowed by over
them, or when long conversations were interpreted or summarized to
a sentence or two at the end for the benefit of the deaf and hard-of-hearing
persons.
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CPR Certification
Warren Center
staffers Amy Bragg, Kathy DiSalvatore and MaryBeth Richards look
on as Judy Sternal practices CPR |
Speech-language
pathologists Colleen Nilan and Kylie Gallant-Spratt practice
their CPR skills. |
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Meet
the New Warren Center Staff
Jodi Zemrak is the Warren
Center’s new business office manager.
Jodi has a B.S. in Accounting from the University of Southern Maine
and was formerly the assistant general manager for Margarita’s
Mexican Restaurants in Augusta, Maine and Salem and Keene, New Hampshire.
She was also a former accounting assistant for Oxford Management,
Inc. in Portland. Jodi lives in Ellsworth, and is engaged to Chad
Poulin. The couple plans an April, 2006 wedding. In her free time,
she enjoys hiking, reading, scrapbooking and watching the Boston
Red Sox.
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Warren
Center featured on Resource Link
Mainers looking for information on social service agencies in our
state have a new source for information, and the Warren Center is
featured in its pages.
Resource Link is a searchable database of community resources containing
information on 3,000+ social services in the state. It includes crucial
addresses, phone numbers, key contacts, and support groups. The website
is a product of Ingraham, a social service agency based in Portland.
Information about the Warren Center and its programs is available
on the site, which can be viewed at http://www.ingraham.info.
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Summer
Speech Aides
The Warren Center has two speech aides to help our speech-language
pathologists during group and individual therapy sessions.
So if you see Jen Jackson or Brenda Russell at the Center, wish
them a warm hello! |
