WHEREAS, Most people with communicative disorders can be helped rehabilitation for these impairments includes medical and surgical treatments, hearing aids, and hearing and speech rehabilitation; and

WHEREAS, An estimated 24 million people in the United States, about 10 percent of the population, suffer from hearing, speech, or language handicaps. A common cause of permanent hearing loss is repeated exposure to loud noise. Of the 21 million people in the United States who suffer hearing impairment, may suffer from uncorrected hearing loss; and

WHEREAS, Between 1980 and 2050, the number of people with hearing and speech impairments will increase at faster rates than that total United States population as a direct result of the aging of the population. Hearing loss is most common amongst the elderly. More than one out of ever four people over the age of 65 has a hearing disorder; and

WHEREAS, An estimated three million people in the United States suffer from speech or language disorders, articulation disorders, difficulties with the way sounds are formed and strung together, are the most common of all speech disorders. Stuttering, one of the most widely recognized speech disorders, affects more than one million people in the United States, half of whom are children; and

WHEREAS, Each year, over 84,000, Americans suffer from Aphasia (the loss of the ability to use speech and language) due to a stroke or hear injury; and

WHEREAS, When hearing, speech, or language impairments cannot be medically corrected, the audiologist or speech-language pathologist can help. Audiologists specialize in the prevention, identification and assessment of hearing disorders and provide rehabilitation services for children and adults with hearing problems. Speech-language pathologists are specialists in human communication, its development, and its disorders; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That this house of representatives of the state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations hereby recognizes the month of May, 1996 as Better Speech-Language-Hearing Month; an be it further

RESOLVED, That the Secretary of State be and he hereby is authorized and directed to transmit a duly certified copy of this resolution to the Rhode Island Department of Health and to the Rhode Island Speech-Language-Hearing Association at P.O. Box 9241, Providence, Rhode Island 02904.