Welcome to the Warren Center

The Warren Center is celebrating our 45th Birthday this September! Over the years, many things have changed, including our name, but providing quality care to the children and adults of Eastern and Central Maine has always remained a priority. Although many of you are familiar with the work we currently do in our communities, we thought this would be a fitting time to let you in on a little of the Center’s history.

In September of 1961, the Junior League of Bangor established the Bangor Regional Speech & Hearing Center in response to the 1950’s measles epidemic which had left many of the areas young children deaf or hard of hearing. The League pledged financial support and volunteered to fill administrative positions within the Center.

Phyllis Schneiderman, a graduate from Ohio State University, was hired as the Therapist Director when the Center opened full time in 1963. Soon afterward, Bob Hawkes, was hired and assumed the position of Executive Director. At this time, the Center offered speech therapy and hearing screenings to preschool and school-aged children. In the 1970s the Center functioned as the special ed department for area schools.

In the early 1980’s Jean Heath was hired on as Director, and the Center expanded their services to include speech and hearing care for adults as well as children. By this time, the center had hired on six clinicians and broadened their contracting work with the public schools. At this time, the Center was also providing Medicare outpatient speech services and case management services to the state.

In 1996, the Center moved to our current location at 175 Union Street in Bangor. As part of the building renovations, an Audiology booth was purchased and the Center’s first Audiologist was hired. In honor of the Richard J. Warren Family, who had an instrumental part in the development and sustainability of the Center since its beginning, the Center’s name was officially changed to The Warren Center for Communication & Learning in 1998. The Voices to Be Heard program, which teaches deaf and hard of hearing individuals how to listen – and speak, was started in 1999 with the help from the Maine Community Foundation, Eastern Maine Charities and the Oberkotter Foundation. The Warren Center’s Regional Hearing Aid Bank (ReHAB), which provides no cost hearing aids to members of the community who are unable to afford them, received start up funding from the United Way in 2001. The Center began accepting hearing aids for refurbishment and placing aids with clients in 2002.

The Warren Center is pleased to announce the receipt of a $9,435 grant from the Penobscot Valley Health Association Fund of the Maine Community Foundation. This grant will fund start up costs of the All Ears Preschool, a developmentally appropriate, inclusive program for hearing impaired children.

MaryBeth Richards, Warren Center Program Director, highlighted the importance of this grant. “This is the next step in our Voices to Be Heard Program which gives hearing impaired children the foundation to use their voice as their primary means of communication. The All Ears Preschool will create a wonderful opportunity for hearing impaired children to interact with their hearing peers.” Mary Poulin, Warren Center Administrative Director linked the program to the Warren Center’s mission, “Working with hearing impaired preschool children was the Warren Center’s mission at its founding in 1961. Beginning the All Ear’s Preschool is an exciting way to mark our forty-fifth anniversary.”

The grant money received will go along way in purchasing start up equipment for the All Ears Preschool. However, the Warren Center still has a few hurdles to overcome before the preschool will be ready to open. Certifications, securing a school site and hiring a teacher are all challenges the staff will be working on in the upcoming months. If you would like to make a donation toward the start up of the preschool, please call (207) 941-2850 or send the donation 175 Union Street Bangor, ME 04401. Please indicate “All Ears Preschool” on all donations.

I celebrated a birthday recently and someone sent me one of those timelines that compared how it was then and now. So with our upcoming anniversary of The Warren Center approaching, I decided to look back at then and now. In 1961, hearing aids were large, boxy body aids worn around the neck or around the waist. Today, hearing aids are digitally programmable and small enough to hardly be noticed. Cochlear implants the newest technology that surgically implants a processor in the inner ear have amplifiers that can be worn around the waist or hanging from the neck. Isn’t it funny that what was old is now new again? I guess you could say that was true of work we do at The Warren Center, too.

In 1961, children with hearing impairments were seen for speech and language therapy and taught how to use their voice as their primary means of communication, and many of them were preschoolers who worked individually or in a group at times to prepare them for public school classrooms and the challenges of that setting. In fact, for years, The Warren Center, then Bangor Regional Speech & Hearing worked as the special education department of the public schools until the laws changed and schools needed to provide the services we previously had. We still work with preschoolers and we still help some of the public schools serve their students, too. This past July, The Warren Center received a grant to assist with the start-up funds for a preschool program that will allow hearing-impaired children to work in a group setting to prepare for school and the classroom setting. Again, it seems that what was old is new again. We are very excited to have the opportunity to expand our programs to include this “new” area. I hope that soon we will have more news to report on the All Ears Preschool program.

Don’t throw your used ink cartridges away! The Warren Center is able to recycle the cartridges in exchange for a discount with a local vendor. Every cartridge you donate is worth $3 off our next order!

By Warren Center Audiologists
Dr. Amanda Samoluk, CCC-A and Dr. Kimberly Starkey, CCC-A

The main differences between an audiologist and a hearing aid dealer are training/education and scope of practice. Audiologists are educated in accredited colleges and universities and must obtain at least a Master’s degree to be eligible for professional certification through the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) and to meet state licensing requirements. Hearing aid dealers are only required to have a high school diploma and to train under a current license holder for often less than one year. The audiologists’ scope of practice includes evaluation and management of various disorders and hearing and balance for all age groups. A hearing aid dealer should only be performing rudimentary hearing tests on adults for the purpose of selling and fitting hearing aids.

I have had my behind-the-ear (BTE) hearing aids for over a year and they no longer fit or sound the way they once did. What can be done?

Many problems associated with fit and sound quality can be solved with a new set of earmolds. Our ears can continue to grow and to change shape throughout our entire lives. Even a slight change in the shape of the ear can cause an earmold to fit improperly resulting in discomfort, feedback, etc. Also, with BTEs, the earmolds take the brunt of the wear and tear caused by exposure to wax, moisture, etc. Earmolds can become yellow and brittle over time and may distort or crack. This can cause a change in the sounds that you perceive. For these reasons, many people need to get a new set of earmolds every year, if not more frequently. To help a set of earmolds last longer, don’t forget about proper care. You don’t want to get your hearings aids wet but you can clean and even soak earmolds to remove damaging wax and oils. The Warren Center can provide you with new earmolds. During a short 5-10 minute appointment, our Audiologists will take an impression of your ear, and your new earmolds will be available within 1-2 weeks.