More for May: Healthy Vision and Better Hearing and Speech

In the long list of May observances, you’ll find both Healthy Vision Month, from the National Eye Institute, and Better Hearing and Speech Month from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). We continue with our series highlighting resources you can use right now from the NIDILRR grantee community to help you focus on healthy vision and better speech and hearing for yourself, your loved ones, and/or the people you support.

Healthy Vision

The Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Employment Outcomes for People who are Blind or Visually Impaired has a growing library of free, self-paced online courses on blindness and low vision, including introductions to many adult and childhood eye diseases.
http://ntac.blind.msstate.edu/courses/

Better Hearing

The 2008-2013 Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Hearing Enhancements at Gallaudet University published a collection of articles on hearing loss by Dr. Marc Ross
http://hearingresearch.org/ross/index.php as well as an article in Hearing Loss Magazine called Can you hear me now? Maximizing your hearing on the phone at
http://www.nxtbook.com/ygsreprints/HLAA/g33893_hlaa_mayjun2013/#/28

Better Speech

The Communication Matrix is a free assessment tool developed under a field initiated grant that can be used by professionals or parents to pinpoint exactly how an individual is communicating and to provide a framework for determining logical communication goals. An easy to use assessment instrument designed for individuals of all ages who function at the earliest stages of communication and who use any form of communication.
https://www.communicationmatrix.org/

For Providers

The Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Independent Living offers a quick guide for medical practitioners (including vision and hearing care centers) to make their offices more accessible to people with mobility and sensory disabilities, including tips on disability etiquette.
http://www.rtcil.org/~rtcil/documents/Healthcare/
Disability%20resources%20for%20hc%20providers.pdf

Explore on Your Own

These are just a few examples of the work of the NIDILRR community with regard to speech, hearing, and vision. Want to dive deeper? These links will help you explore current and past research projects, as well as articles indexed in our collection:

These are just a few examples of deep searches you can run in REHABDATA and the NIDILRR Program Database. Check out this article on exploring our databases for more search tips.