Local Healthcare through Healthy Hearing Program of Special Olympic Korea: Inje Gangwon

Kim, Saea; Kwak, Chanbeom; Han, Woojae

doi:2018.14.1.65

Audiology and Speech Research > Volume 14(1); 2018 > Article

Brief Communication

Audiology and Speech Research 2018;14(1): 65-71.
Published online: January 31, 2018.
doi: http://doi.org/10.21848/asr.2018.14.1.65

한국스페셜올림픽대회 청각검진을 통해 바라본 지역건강돌봄: 강원도 인제

김세아¹, 곽찬범², 한우재²

¹한림대학교 일반대학원 언어병리청각학과
²한림대학교 자연과학대학 언어청각학부·청각언어연구소

Local Healthcare through Healthy Hearing Program of Special Olympic Korea: Inje Gangwon

Saea Kim¹, Chanbeom Kwak², Woojae Han²

¹Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, Graduate School, Hallym University, Chuncheon, Korea
²Division of Speech Pathology and Audiology, Research Institute of Audiology and Speech Pathology, College of Natural Sciences, Hallym University, Chuncheon, Korea

Correspondence

Woojae Han ,Tel: +82-33-248-2216 , Fax: +82-33-256-3420, Email: woojaehan@hallym.ac.kr

Received: December 11, 2017; Revised: January 10, 2018 Accepted: January 10, 2018. Published online: January 31, 2018.

ABSTRACT

Intellectual disability is a disability characterized by significant limitations in both intellectual functioning and in adaptive behavior, which covers many everyday social and practical skills. Regardless of those limitations of people with intellectual disabilities, the first International Special Olympics Summer Games were held in July 1968, resulting from various movements for their equality and human right, and their social adaptation. Now, Special Olympics is the world’s largest sports organization for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, providing year-round training and competitions to 5.7 million athletes and Unified Sports partners in 172 countries including Korea. In particular, during the Olympic game, health athletes, which offers health screenings to athletes as need in seven areas: Fit Feet (podiatry), FUN fitness (physical therapy), Health Promotion (better health and well-being), Healthy Hearing (audiology), MedFest (sports physical exam), Opening Eyes (vision), and Special Smiles (dentistry). Among them, the Healthy Hearing program includes otoscopy, otoacoustic emission, tympanometry, pure-tone screening, and pure-tone threshold tests, to inform hearing status and additional management for the athletes. This brief communication presents history and principle of Special Olympics including its development in Korea. Also it offers useful information for the athletes participating in the Special Olympics, who have intellectual disability, to understand them, while reporting brief outcomes of healthy hearing program of the Special Olympic Korea held in Inje, Gangwon. In final part of this brief communication, we scrutinize hearing status of people with intellectual disabilities who live in Inje, Gangwon in terms of local healthcare. In closing, we request professional attention and care to them as audiology and speech-language specialists as well as readers of Audiology and Speech Research.

Key Words: Healthcare, Healthy hearing, Special Olympic, Intellectual disability, Gangwon.