May is finally here, and that makes all of us here at WebPT super stoked. Why? Well, the sun is shining, the flowers are blooming, the birds are singing, and of course, it’s Better Hearing and Speech Month!

The tradition of Better Hearing and Speech Month began more than 75 years ago as a way to shed light on the many forms of communication disorders and impairments affecting human hearing, speech, language, and voice. The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders estimates that approximately 43 million people in the United States live with some kind of speech, voice, language, or hearing impairment.

Here are a few more figures to consider:

• About two to three out of every 1,000 children in the US are born deaf or hard-of-hearing. Nine out of every ten children who are born deaf have parents with normal hearing function.
• More than three million Americans stutter, with the highest incidence occurring among boys ages two through six.
• An estimated one million people in the US have aphasia, a language disorder resulting from post-stroke brain damage.
• Approximately 36 million American adults report some degree of hearing loss, yet only one out of five people who could benefit from a hearing aid actually uses one.

Today's blog post comes from WebPT Community Manager, Mark Kats.

A robot performing speech and physical therapy? A UMass Amherst study explores the prospect of using a personal humanoid robot to help stroke patients recover by delivering therapy. Think: word retrieval games and arm movement tasks. Check out the full article here.

Support AB 1000! PTs in California continue to fight for California patients’ rights to directly access quality, cost-effective, and safe physical therapy services. Get the details here.

Starting April 1st, the physical therapy profession is facing additional cuts to Medicare reimbursements. This affects us all! Please share this APTA article with colleagues so everyone’s is in the know.

Of course, these are just a few news stories making the rounds this week. Like our Facebook page for all things rehab therapy related.

#SolvePT’s Tuesday night Twitter chat on January 8, 2013, focused on the topic of trade shows and conferences—specifically how to get the most out of them. With CSM 2013 next week in sunny San Diego, it was definitely a timely discussion. So, how do you get the most out of conferences? Here are five tips:

1. Be selective. There are local, regional, national, and even international conferences and events, spanning a plethora of topics from specific private practice physical therapy to general health care. While trade show after parties can be pretty rockin’, and a change of scenery is always nice, you and your practice don’t need to attend everything. Conferences aren’t Pokemon, after all, so be selective.
   
   Choose the shows that are most relevant and will prove most educational. Additionally, not everyone from one practice can all drop everything and attend the same shows. Consider researching local and regional shows that may provide similar education and training as national events and then enacting a rotation plan for large-scale shows.