Our Past and Present

Our Heritage
Sertoma — SERvice TO MAnkind — is an international, service organization that helps speech and hearing impaired people at all stages of life  from newborns to seniors. Sertoma has 32,000 members nationwide with 750 members in Illinois and Wisconsin.

After completing a marketplace study, it was clear to the Sertoma Foundation that affordable, professional, speech-and-hearing services were unavailable in southwest suburbs of Metropolitan Chicago. As a result, The Speech and Hearing Center was founded by several local Sertoma clubs to serve this need.

In 1978, The Speech and Hearing Center opened its first facility with the help of Sertoma International and fundraising by the Sertoma Foundation and local clubs. In 1995, a second location was added in Homewood, Illinois, and in 2004, a third in Romeoville, Illinois.

While The Speech and Hearing Center is an independent, nonprofit, 501 (c)(3) organization, Sertoma Clubs in the Great Lakes area are active fundraisers for The Speech and Hearing Center. Their support is vital to our success. 

Today
We are a comprehensive, speech and hearing health-care organization that treats approximately 13,000 patients a year at our three clinics. To meet the demand for our services, we now have six speech pathologists and seven audiologists, all professionally licensed and credentialed. We’re also an education site for students who are completing their clinical-residency requirements in speech-language pathology and audiology.

A key element of our mission is to help all who need us with the highest quality professional care at affordable rates. When our fees are too expensive for some of our patients, we offer Professional-Services Assistance to those who qualify. We are able to do this because of the generosity of individuals, Sertoma Clubs, foundations, and local businesses who support us financially so that we can provide professional speech and hearing care for anyone who needs us. 
 

Year after year, the demand for our speech and hearing services grows. Two drivers of our recent growth are the aging population and the recognition of autism-spectrum disorders.

  • The aging of America means more and more hearing loss, a natural result of growing older. And with the increased sophistication of digital hearing-aid technology, our audiologists can fine-tune the amplification of sound to fit the precise needs of each person — say "so long" to background-noise interference. Now, without distraction, you can rejoin the conversation.
  • Today, more children and teens are being diagnosed with autism-spectrum disorders. In this area, we offer substantial expertise. For example, our speech-language pathologists have years of experience developing client-specific communication strategies and have the energy and patience to implement them with care, one on one.