Power of Speech 2022

On September 10, the Telethon Speech & Hearing auditorium transformed into a grand stage for our 33rd Power of Speech awards! Nineteen courageous primary school students each presented a speech to an audience of around 200 people at this year’s event. Power of Speech is an event that celebrates the wonderful outcomes possible for students with hearing loss, as they exhibit their public speaking skills in front of a live audience of peers, families, teachers and friends of TSH.  The students range from Years 1 to 6 and speak on a topic of their choice.

The students spend much time writing and practicing their speeches as well as preparing a PowerPoint presentation to go along with their speech. The event gives them a wonderful opportunity to develop their spoken language skills whilst learning new vocabulary and concepts. It also allows them to learn how best to prepare and deliver a speech in order to engage an audience, and of course how to deal with their nerves on stage.

Our master of ceremonies this year were journalist, presenter and university course facilitator, Andrea Burns and television news presenter, Geof Parry.  Both did a great job in keeping the event running smoothly and keeping the audiene engaged.

We also had a panel of three judges – Kevin Brown, the CEO of Perth Airport, Hannah Cain, speech pathologist and David Price, a speaking and business coach. This was David’s 15th year as a judge! We warmly thank him for his commitment to TSH and to the event. The judges made comment that their task of selecting winners gets tougher every year and they really struggled to single out winners. They felt that all students were confident, had interesting speeches and presented well.  They also noted how well the students engaged with the audience, including some who used fantastic humor. It was a joy to watch!

Once again, the work, bravery and fantastic speech, language and public speaking skills the students exhibited were amazing and an extremely positive and rewarding thing to watch.  All the children are winners for their achievements in delivering their speeches.

Congratulations to our 2022 Power of Speech Winners!

Category 2: Kealan Doak, The Case of the Missing Strawberry Yoghurt

Category 1: Eamon Doak, Mirror, Mirror on the Wall  

Geoff Reader Encouragement Award: Max Gordon, How to Train a Pony

Mary Shurman Most Improved Award: Ashton Jugov-Janiec, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Thank You

A lot goes into organizing this event but there is a fantastic team behind it. The Outpost team of teachers, education assistants and support staff, including speech pathologists and occupational therapists, put in many hours to pull this together. Our marketing team also worked tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure everything was in order. This year we again decided to have professionals on board for lighting and sound, photography and videography, who all did a brilliant job in making sure each student shone on stage. There was a whole team effort to support the real stars – our wonderful Telethon Speech & Hearing students.

Event Supporters

Thank you to the following supporters for helping make this year’s Power of Speech a memorable occasion for our students and their families:

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© 2022 Telethon Speech & Hearing Ltd.

Telethon Speech & Hearing acknowledges and thanks all individuals and organisations for their support of our centre, including: Channel 7 Telethon Trust, Channel 7 and The West Australian

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