Parkinson Voice Project awards 2022 SPEAK OUT! & LOUD Crowd Grant to CMU

Parkinson Voice Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the voices of individuals with Parkinson’s, has named Central Michigan University as a recipient of its 2022 SPEAK OUT! & LOUD Crowd Grant Program. 

Grant recipients include hospitals, universities, private practices, and other speech therapy clinics across the United States and abroad. Each clinic receives speech therapy workbooks and free training for its speech-language pathologists and graduate students. Central Michigan University is committed to offering Parkinson Voice Project’s “SPEAK OUT! & LOUD Crowd” program to their Parkinson’s community. 

“Up to 90% of people with Parkinson’s are at risk of losing their ability to speak.  In addition, swallowing complications account for 70% of the mortality rate in this patient population. Our vision at Parkinson Voice Project is to make quality speech therapy accessible to people with Parkinson’s worldwide,” said Samantha Elandary, Parkinson Voice Project’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer.

This grant program honors the late Daniel R. Boone, Ph.D., a world-renowned speech-language pathologist who recognized in the 1950s that individuals with Parkinson's could improve their communication by “speaking with intent." Parkinson Voice Project’s highly effective speech therapy program is based on Boone’s teachings and combines education for the patient and family, along with individual and group speech therapy.