Northeast Hearing & Speech Center (Northeast) is Maine’s oldest and largest nonprofit speech-language-hearing center, serving Maine since 1924. Each of our 15 Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) and 4 Audiologists holds a Ph.D. or Master’s degree, state license and Certificate of Clinical Competence from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). Our therapists have been part of ASHA’s National Outcomes Measurement System study for 12 years and the Early Reading First Grant through US D.O.E. for 7 years, serving as teacher trainers & consultants. Northeast is one of only 6 centers in Maine providing Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) assessments for the Maine Newborn Hearing Program. Our innovative work with children is the subject of a study funded by the John T. Gorman Foundation and the Bingham Program (through Tufts Medical School). We have been piloting iPads in treatment and collecting data about the effectiveness of iPads in speech-language therapy with preschoolers for a published study. In 2011, grants from the Davis Family Foundation and Jane’s Trust allowed us to become a catalyst in promoting change at the preschool level by funding the training of 3 Northeast SLPs to become Hanen certified. This was just one more step towards cementing our qualifications to implement a formal teacher education program to instruct preschool teachers about how to facilitate language and literacy in their students. Grants from Harvard Pilgrim, the Maine Community Foundation and the United Way allowed us to share our considerable expertise in offering teacher training and coaching about language acquisition by children who are English Language Learners. We continue to work directly with handicapped children in therapy every day, but through teacher education, training and collaboration we contribute to systemic change and prevention for all preschoolers enrolled in classrooms throughout our community, including those with special needs.
