Run for Sound - Pilot Episode 1

And a listing of spoken language specialists has to be aware of auditory systems much more than a general speech-language pathologist, because if kids can't hear it, they can't say it. Welcome to the Hear Indiana podcast, which we'll have a different name at some point. My name is Brent Johnson. I'm a board member with Hear Indiana. Today, I'm chatting with Ellen McCall from Hear Indiana as well. Ellen, please introduce yourself to folks. Hi there. I'm Ellen McCall. I'm the CEO of Hear Indiana. I'm a teacher of the Deaf and a Listening and Spoken Language Specialist by Credential. And I am the parent of a kiddo with hearing loss who uses cochlear implants. Thanks. So this is an interesting thing. I've been, my daughter is also a cochlear implant recipient from, I think she got her first at about 18 months. And so this has been something that has been near and dear to my heart and my family's heart and just trying to learn more about how or of specific other organizations can assist people with hearing loss and disabilities and help them specifically in the area of speech and language development. Here in Deanna does really all of that. So what are some of the kind of high level services and things that Hear Indiana delivers for families all across the state? Yeah, so just to give you a quick overview, Hear Indiana started over 53 years ago with a group of parents in Indiana who wanted their kids who were deaf to be able to attend mainstream schools. And so we started out as an advocacy group. And over the years, we added on an educational conference and a camp for kids with hearing loss and then about 11 years ago, we started our own clinic. So we offer audiology services, speech and language services, school services and advocacy support for families in Indiana. And then, you know, this is a nonprofit, correct? Yes. And it's, what is the, how is it funded? How do we, how do, how does the organization actually operate? So we're largely grant and donor funded. We have grants through various organizations throughout the state and then we have individual donors. And then we also bill insurance through the clinic. So the clinic is revenue generating, but it's supported by donations and grants. What are some of the ways that donations and things come in from outside people? Is it, like you said, grants, but is it also kind of just individual donors here and there or events or? So our major fundraiser is coming up. We do one really big fundraiser every year and that's our run for sound. So that's a great opportunity to be able to bring in money for kids with hearing loss across the state. We do a couple of other supporting events throughout the year to raise funds. And in addition to that, we have some, and of some campaigns and appeals that go out to donors throughout the course of the year. Talk, let's talk more about the run for a minute. So when is it, you know, how many people typically kind of attend this? And, you know, what is sort of the expectations? Yeah. So the run is coming up on Saturday, September 6th at Connor Prairie in Fisher's, Indiana. It's really fun. It's a 5K and a kid's carnival afterwards. So it is both a fundraiser and a community building event. The way that we raise money through the run is that people sign up a fundraising team and create their own team. And then fundraise on their team and within that team and raise funds for here in Indiana. So, so far this year, we have about 30 teams registered, but that will continue to go up up until the day of the race. We usually have over 300 attendees on race day. Okay. So I'm not a runner. Like I tried to be a runner years ago, but it just wasn't, it just wasn't me, you know. So what, what about for people who, you know, really like they want to give, but maybe they don't want to run as their walk options, as there are other things that they can do? Absolutely. So it's a run or a walk. So we have people that do both or either whichever feels good to them. We also have a kid's carnival afterwards. So people will tend to just come and hang out. So we have many people that will join a fundraising team just to donate to the organization. As well. So even if they can't make the run, there are virtual run options or you can just simply donate to help a fundraising team reach their fundraising goal. Cool. Connor Prairie is great. I was there last year for a school field trip with both my daughter and it's, it's an interesting kind of layout. Are you kind of running through like the trails around the campus there? Yeah, they get to actually run through the historic towns in Connor Prairie as well as go around the grounds. So it's really a fun and informational trip. Is it in a lot of the, that told trail areas all kind of gravel? So it's not like asphalt paved the whole way. So if you're in, if you are an avid runner, it's more like a trail run or. It's not all paved. That's accurate. We, the run generally takes between 20 minutes and an hour depending on how serious you are about running or walking. We have a lot of families with kids who come and so they take a little longer. They may have strollers, things like that. Okay. All right. Good. Those kind of logistics matter because, you know, I know the last time I tried to do a 5K, it took me an embarrassingly a lot of long to long amount of time and I just, I think I was last. So, you know, I always send my son is the last one. So we know when everybody's made it in. He's like the caboose of the run. And he does a great job with that. So you'd have a buddy. All right. The other cool thing that's happening the day of the run this year is the Jupiter flights balloon festival. So before the run starts, there will be a lot of hot air balloons landing in a field nearby. And it's just going to be a really cool experience to get to see all those come in. I was wondering about that because I've seen that, you know, from the distance and years past just living in the area and I'm like, what is going on with that? So like, yeah, those are cool when that happens. And I know I've noticed that a lot around indeed in the summertime as they'll just periodically there'll be balloons in the sky. Have not seen very many of the summer. Maybe it's been too hot. I don't know. Not a balloon expert either. So aside from just being a fundraiser, you mentioned kids carnival. Like whenever I hear the words kids carnival, I think face painting and that kind of stuff. Like, you know, what kind of stuff is is slated to be on the docket for that? Yep. You're on the right track. After the run, we'll have a kids run, which is a shorter run for the kids to participate in. They have a bunch of different games that are set up outside that they can participate in and get prizes. It's just a fun time for families to hang out. Is there an age limit on the kids run? Maybe I should do the kids run. Ten and under. Oh, man. Oh, well, maybe next time. Well, I think this has been helpful. And future conversations that you and I have, I want to dig into some deeper topics and get into some more educational things. Some stuff that we've talked about. Like, we, at some point, have some conversations with some of the audiologists, some of the SLPs. I'd like to kind of, and the teachers of the deaf, like, we want to kind of go through, you know, all of the individual things and make a lot of the content that shows up on this channel very much education focused so that parents, providers, teachers, like anybody in the community that kind of wants to know more about speech and language and hearing assistance and all these kinds of things that, you know, are easily be, you know, easily kind of missed and somewhat sometimes can be taken for granted by the general population of, you know, of everyone. Like there's a lot of stuff that goes into helping people with hearing loss. And so I want to kind of start having those conversations, but just real quick. Can you, like, I've never really actually had anybody give me a clean definition of what an SLP like is and kind of what makes up a speech and language pathologist like duties. Like how is it, what, how are they trained? Kind of, can you give me sort of a, as a 90 second sort of debrief on what it takes to be an SLP? I can, but I think what you'd be more interested in hearing about is actually what it takes to be a listening and spoken language specialist. So that is an SLP or an audiologist or a teacher of the deaf who has specialized in working with kids with hearing loss who choose listening and spoken language specifically. So the base requirements are that you have a degree in audiology or speech language pathology or deaf education. And this is an additional three to five year process on top of that degree in which you do over 900 hours of therapy with kids with hearing loss. And then those sessions are mentored. And then at the end of your three to five year process, you take a test to become what's called a listening and spoken language specialist. And a listening and spoken language specialist, their goal is to develop the auditory system of kids with hearing loss to meet that child's full potential. Obviously outcomes look different for every kid. And they use speech and language. They use strategies to develop language and speech in these kids so that they meet the level of their hearing peers. And it looks different than typical speech language pathology because it's very specific to kids with hearing loss. loss. See, and I guess that's part of what I was missing, right? Because when I look up stuff about just being a speech and language pathologist, I'm learning things already here. There's a specific kind of specialization track or helping people with specific hearing loss challenges. When you become a speech language pathologist or a teacher of the deaf, you know a lot, or a little about a lot of different areas. Getting into a track like a listening and spoken language specialist track allows you to specialize in kids with hearing loss. And so all of the research, all of the strategies, all of those things apply to kids with hearing loss specifically. Whereas you're not focusing on, for example, stuttering or apraxia or different other issues that may arise with speech and language if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of like a specialization of a specialization. Whereas a speech language pathologist coming out of school is going to know about a little bit about all of those different categories of speech delays and speech issues. And this is just a deeper dive into hearing loss and how to develop language in kids with hearing loss specifically. I mean, I guess if you think about it, it kind of has to be a different educational subset that these professionals have to work off of because for like, you know, a case in point like for my daughter, like she had zero auditory input for like the first year and a half of her life. And so they're literally working from nothing to build up to something. And she was just in for her assessment yesterday. But apparently she did better than anybody's ever seen before. So I don't know. Kudos to you guys and kudos to her for doing real. Good going through the process. Well, and that's the goal, right? And that's the reason of listening and spoken language specialists has to be aware of auditory systems much more than a general speech language pathologist because if kids can't hear it, they can't say it. And so we have to make sure the auditory system is developed and that we are making sure that they're hearing really well as well as speaking well and having good language if that makes sense. And that's why listening and spoken language specialist work very closely with audiologists because it's really two prongs, right? We need to make sure they have access to the sounds before we can expect them to understand and produce the sounds. Cool. All right. I think that's good for now. This is just scratching the surface of a lot of really to me, very interesting topics. And I think the more we kind of practice this and get through kind of some of these nuances of what you guys do and the services you provide and how it helps people, I think this is like information that I've not really seen anywhere else. So like I said, I'm already learning things. I'm sure when I publish this out there that people will hopefully give us some feedback about, hey, I learned something today too. All right. So one last time to recap for the run, when is the run again and how do people sign up? The run is Saturday, September 6th at Connor Prairie and you can sign up at runforsound.com. And what time does the run start? It both starts at 9. I believe registration opens at 8. Okay. All right. Cool. Thanks, Ellen. This has been great. Nice little first test recording for us here. And I think we will continue to do these and help people understand more about listening to spoken language and all the things here in Vienna. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks. [Music]