(HTS) was founded as a health communications initiative for Dr. Tabia Pope’s dissertation while attending Howard University. In 2019, HTS was incorporated and in 2021 we became an educational, scientific and charitable 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization! We address the need for Brain Health, Sports Concussion & The Effects on Cognitive-Communication Skills Awareness with a concentration in helping c
ollegiate student, professional and former athletes, as well as their support systems. The current educational initiatives for sports concussion and other head injuries are primarily geared towards youth sports or emphasize the expertise of the coalition of medical professionals, athletic trainers and coaches. Just focusing on youth sports and materials geared towards them is problematic because numerous current college, professional and former athletes have a history of sustaining repetitive closed head injuries while participating in competitive or recreational sports. There are developmental, learning, vocational, behavioral, and/or emotional concerns at the youth level, which can account for the number of programs geared towards them. At the college and professional level, the concerns are still the same however, the manifestations of health, athletic, academic, vocational and social outcomes of repetitive sports concussions are greater. College and professional athletes have a more invested interest in their abilities to play. The competition level is harder, more stress is put on them to succeed, maintain winning records and keep their scholarships and jobs for economic stability. Due to the higher financial investments there may be more challenges in raising awareness or providing clinical research and training in the areas of head injury and the effects on speech-language-hearing and cognitive-communication skills. The current outreach awareness campaigns do not include rehabilitation professionals, such as speech-language pathologists and audiologists or the process to obtain assessments and treatment for speech-language-hearing and cognitive-communication problems. There is currently a lack of adequate health communication tools to talk about these problems in a time-effective and efficient manner within the sports medicine and rehabilitation communities, athletic community (e.g., coaches, teammates, sports broadcasters), and community-at-large (e.g. partners, spouses, academic advisors, vocational counselors, sports management professionals and attorneys). After sustaining a closed head injury, college and professional athletes and those involved in their lives are unable to identify the speech-language-hearing and cognitive-communication signs and symptoms or unable to identify speech-language pathologists and audiologists as the professionals responsible for assessing and treating these problems. They may also pass off poor academic and vocational performance for other stressors, not realizing that the college and professional athletes are suffering from underlying hemorrhages, intracerebral swelling or axonal shearing, which leads to CTE, early onset dementia, attention, memory, problem-solving, organization, and social communication problems. Head to Speech's programs increase the knowledge and attitudes towards short-and-long term impacts on cognitive-communication skills, as well as increases the inclusion and referrals of speech-language pathologists and audiologists in concussion management programs. Copyrighted. 2016-2023 Head to Speech, Inc.
