Looper Speech & Hearing Center

Mission: To offer communication improvement solutions that are affordable and accessible to the communities we serve. History: Looper Speech and Hearing Center was incorporated on October 16, 1969 as a 501C3 not-for-profit center by petition of Dr. Royal T. Farrow, Dr. Ronald Tipton and Mrs. John W. Looper, Jr. The corporation was established in memory of the life of Dr. John W. Looper, Jr. in thanksgiving for his life and contributions to this community. Dr. Looper died tragically in a plane crash during the initial development stages of the facility. Dr. Looper was referring children with speech and language difficulties to the Chattanooga Speech and Hearing Center or to facilities in Atlanta. This created a hardship on some parents and those parents without reliable transportation could not receive services. The first registered office of the corporation was St. Marks Episcopal Church. The Center moved to Broadrick Street, added Audiology services and continued to serve the local needs. The Center became an affiliate service provider of the United Way of Northwest Georgia and continues in that capacity today. The United Way funds from the United Ways of Northwest Georgia and the United Way of Gordon County help to pay for services that local individuals are unable to pay. In addition to the United Way assistance, the Center relies on donations and fundraisers to assist in covering services for those who are unable to pay the full fees. In 1984 the Center operated the first Capital Fund drive approved by the United Way of Northwest Georgia to build its current facility on Professional Boulevard in Dalton. After raising the necessary capital, the Center initiated a building program and moved into the building in 1985. The Center currently operates with a fifteen member Board of Directors. In 1999 the Center doubled its existing space by adding on to the current building. In 2012, a single donor provided the funding to expand the building again to meet the needs of the increasing population of Northwest Georgia. In our over forty-eight years of service to the community of Northwest Georgia we have touched many lives with many stories to tell. It is gratifying to have mothers bring their children to the center and tell us that they remember fondly their own days of therapy or having their hearing tested at the center. The Center in its years of operations has provided well over two hundred thousand services to Northwest Georgia and touched the lives of one hundred thousand or more individuals of the region. The Center is a full range Speech and Hearing Center and provides a full complement of services including Speech, Language, Voice, and Swallowing evaluations and therapy as well as Audiological services, Industrial Services, and Hearing Aid Sales and Services.

The Speech and Hearing Center provides a full complement of services. The Audiology Department, in addition to providing hearing evaluations for all ages, assesses individuals for hearing aids, assistive devices, central auditory processing disorders and participates in the Universal Newborn Hearing Screening Program. The hearing impaired individual’s leadership role in the community or occupation requires the ability to effectively communicate in a variety of settings. A hearing impairment can impact one’s ability to be effective in business/education, in the family, in maintaining income and in maintaining one’s health. The use of a hearing aid is positively related to the following quality of life issues: greater earning power, improved interpersonal relationships, reduction in discrimination toward the person with the hearing loss, reduction in difficulty associated with communication, reduction in hearing loss compensation behaviors, reduction in anger and frustrations, reduction in incidence of depression and depressive symptoms, enhanced emotional stability, reduction in paranoid feelings, reduced anxiety symptoms, improved belief that the patient is in control of their lives, reduced self-criticism, improved cognitive functioning, improved health status and less incidence of pain and enhanced group social activity. The use of hearing aids improves overall life through improved mental health, social life, emotional health, and physical health. Our Speech Pathology Department provides therapy for articulation disorders as well as language delays, stuttering, voice disorders, swallowing disorders, laryngectomys, facial deficits and alternative communication devices. In addition, Looper Speech Pathologists are on call to local hospitals 24/7 to determine appropriate therapeutic techniques for stroke patients to allow the safe intake of food and establishment of functional communication.