Marni Johnson and Elizabeth (Liz) K. Hanson started collaborating more than 10 years ago to develop visual supports for athletes coming to the Healthy Hearing station at the annual SD Special Olympics Summer Games. At the time, Johnson (Au.D., CCC-A) and Hanson (Ph.D., CCC-SLP) were part of the faculty, along with Paul Brueggeman (Au.D, CCC-A), at the University of South Dakota Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders and were involved in SD LEND. Special Olympics International (SOI) offers hearing screenings as part of the Healthy Athlete Initiative, which provides a variety of health screenings to athletes attending SOI events internationally. Johnson and Brueggeman started bringing audiology graduate students to the SD Summer Games to complete hearing screenings in 2012.
Johnson and Hanson saw the need to improve communication with athletes who sometimes were confused or anxious about hearing screening procedures. The two developed a visual schedule (Figure 1) showing a picture symbol and plain language label along with a check box for each of the five procedures involved in hearing screening. The check boxes were for the athlete to check off (with a marker or a sticker) each stop on the schedule. The athletes kept their completed schedule to be able to share information about it with others.
Audiology students, and eventually speech-language pathology students and other LEND trainees, learned to augment their spoken instructions with the visual schedules. Several LEND research projects grew from the effort and, in 2024 they shared the idea with the clinical manager of Healthy Hearing at SOI, Denise Cardona Barnes, Au.D., CCC-A. The communication practice was embraced by the Healthy Athletes group and is being adapted as a comprehensive resource across all eight disciplines!
Hanson and Johnson got to try out the new visual schedules (Figure 2), aka “station guides,” at this spring’s South Dakota Special Olympics Summer Games in Spearfish, SD in May. Athletes and screeners alike appreciated the visual supports during the screenings. One student screener commented, “…patients were able to understand each step that was about to be taken in the process at the Healthy Hearing station…this truly kept the patient engaged with the entire process and gave them a desire to do the next station…” Another student screener observed: “…I think it allowed for the athletes to have some autonomy… I think they were a great tool for these athletes as well as the screeners and the chaperones.”
By Elizabeth K. Hanson ([email protected]) SD LEND Discipline Head for SLP and Research
Captions:
Figure 1. Orignal visual schedule for hearing screenings at Special Olympics South Dakota Summer Games. A checklist for a healthy hearing station with tasks like "Look in my ears," "Quiet, listen," and "Hearing aid check," accompanied by small icons and checkboxes.
Figure 2. Marni Johnson, Au.D., CCC-A reviews completed hearing screening procedures on a station guide (aka visual schedule) with athlete at SD Special Olympics Summer Games in Spearfish, SD, May 2026.
