(Rockville, MD - April 14, 2008) The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) has won the 2008 Associations Advance America (AAA) Award of Excellence from the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) and The Center for Association Leadership. The Rockville-based non-profit was selected for its ongoing public education campaign, "America: Tuned In Today...But Tuned Out Tomorrow?"
The AAA award program, now in its 18th year, recognizes associations and industry partners that improve the quality of life in America with innovative programs in education, skills training, standard setting, business and social innovation, knowledge creation, citizenship and community service. While recognizing the unsung work of associations, the AAA Award of Excellence tells the story of what associations do to Congress and other policymakers; local and national media; and, the public.
"The scope and reach of ASHA's campaign has been truly extensive," ASHA executive director Arlene Pietranton says. "It's a tremendous honor for ASHA to be recognized for an educational campaign of such crucial importance to the public."
"America: Tuned In Today…But Tuned Out Tomorrow?" is a national public education campaign about the potential risk of hearing loss from unsafe usage of personal audio technology. The effort, which has generated extensive national and international media coverage, has featured experts from across the fields of research and academia, and provided awareness raising resources and tools to ASHA's more than 130,000 members.
Key campaign elements include TV and radio public service announcements airing around the country and Listentoyourbuds.org, a Web site for teaching very young children about safe usage of personal audio technology. The site, available in English and Spanish, offers games, music and information for children, parents and educators. In addition, the campaign has conducted two national polls, tested sound levels of a range of products, engaged federal lawmakers, conducted dedicated outreach to Hispanic media, and presented at the first ever national conference on noise-induced hearing loss in children.
Winning this award qualifies ASHA to potentially win ASAE's Summit Award, the highest honor of the AAA awards program. Summit winners will be announced later this year.
ASHA is the national professional, scientific, and credentialing association for more than 130,000 audiologists, speech-language pathologists, and speech, language, and hearing scientists.
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