Open Arms Children’s Health Reaching the Community

Rachael Victoria, Marketing Intern

Sara Denley, Audiologist with Little Ears Hearing Center at Open Arms Children’s Health, teaches lessons about hearing to children in local Louisville schools. She works with elementary school-age children in their classrooms as a part of Little Ears’ Community Outreach.

Denley teaches Dangerous Decibels lessons with fourth graders and “How We Hear” with first graders. She has also taught other classes about hearing loss and how it affects their friends at school.

“In Dangerous Decibels, we talk about why it is important to turn down the music and protect our hearing. The goal of this lesson is for the children to realize that we have to protect our hearing in order for us to have it and use it as we get older. The incidents of noise-induced hearing loss in children are on the rise because of children using earbuds and headphones to listen to their music and turning the sound up way too loud. With Dangerous Decibels, we are encouraging the kids to turn the sound down to preserve their hearing.” Explains Denley. She is very passionate about what she teaches in the classrooms and hopes that the lessons she teaches will resonate with them for many years to come.

The “How We Hear” lessons she teaches are about how the hearing system works. She explains, “they learn how sound goes from the outer ear and ends up in the brain so that people can actually hear and understand what is being said or being heard.” For this interactive lesson, she has children crawl through tunnels that represent the ear canal, bang a drum (ear drum), make a human chain (middle ear bones) and make hair cells out of bananas and pretzels (part of the hearing sensory organ). The activities she uses to teach the lessons really help the kids learn and retain the information.

Little Ears began these hearing lessons when they learned there was a need for it. They were asked by schools to come teach kids about hearing and jumped at the opportunity to give back. Denley loves being able to make an impact on the kid’s lives and enjoys seeing them achieve their highest potential. She can tell that the lessons she teaches have been a huge hit. Many of her classes send thank you cards and drawings of ears once classes have ended.

If your child’s class is interested in one of our hearing lessons, call Little Ears at Open Arms Children’s Health at 502.596.1040.