Last Monday the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) launched a new campaign aimed at helping parents of 8 to 12 year olds teach their children how to avoid hearing loss from overexposure to loud noise.
The new campaign is called It’s a Noisy Planet – Protect Their Hearing. The campaign features a website that offers advice to parents on the causes and prevention of noise-induced hearing loss, how to recognize when a child’s hearing is at risk, and ways to reduce noise exposure. The site contains games, posters, and interactive information about noise and hearing loss tailored specifically for tweens.
The Noisy Planet campaign advocates three ways to prevent Noise Induced Hearing Loss:
- Block the noise by wearing earplugs or protective earmuffs.
- Avoid the noise by walking away or limiting time spent in noisy environments.
- Turn down the sound!
This campaign is great, and is exactly the message that needs to go out there to teens (check out our Turn It Down Concert that we hold annually during Better Hearing and Speech Month to spread the same message). If you know a teen or tween that could benefit from this site, please share it with them!