Audiology Students Volunteer at Special Olympics

Students from the Doctor of Audiology (AuD) program volunteered at the 2025 Special Olympics Pennsylvania Summer Games held at Penn State University in State College.

The event, held June 5-7, brought together over 1,700 athletes and 750 coaches from across the state to compete in aquatics, athletics, basketball, bowling, equestrian, golf, gymnastics, softball, and tennis. 

A unique feature of the event is the Special Olympics Healthy Athlete initiative, which involves seven discipline-specific services. The Special Olympics Healthy Athlete initiative involves the following services: Healthy Hearing (Audiology), Opening Eyes (Optometry), Fit Feet (Podiatry), Special Smiles (Dentistry), FUNFitness (Physical Therapy), Strong Minds (Mental Health), and Health Promotions (dietitians, etc.) that provided health screenings to almost 600 athletes. 

The screenings offered help to ensure these individuals are receiving the adequate care they need and deserve. During the two-day event, the Healthy Hearing program screened the hearing of over 150 individuals. This year, 12 Commonwealth University-Bloomsburg Audiology Doctoral Students (Grace Dull, Tatiana Guzman-Carides, Jessica Izzo, Shelby Klingensmith, Caitlin Lehman, Emily Moyer, Waheeda Nur, Makaylia Ray, Alain Montoya, Kelly Rice, Kaleigh Resnick, Lilian Yuschock) and one Audiology Faculty member (Thomas Zalewski, Ph.D.) volunteered at the Healthy Hearing initiative.