Winter Wonderland was a community event run by the HELLO Lab on 12/8/24. Families, children who are D/deaf, hard of hearing, and Deaf+, came together in Storrs, CT! The Human Development Center was converted into a Winter Wonderland complete with snowball fights, a hallway FULL of snowflakes, snow globe making, bingo, snowman building (with no-melt snow), and a resource fair with 13 different community groups, organizations, businesses, and educational sites.

The HELLO Lab had activities that were designed to include EVERYONE! All activities had tactile and visual schedules and were designed to include our friends who were DeafBlind and on the Autism Spectrum. Visual schedules, tactile bingo and game pieces, as well as two sensory spaces (a place to calm our bodies and a place to move our bodies), were available thanks to support from community members, clinical and research experts, and adults with lived experience. Spoken English and ASL were represented with wonderful interpreters from UConn Interpreting Services supporting communication.

Families enjoyed the games, crafts, community, education, and wonderful door prizes from the Hartford Yard Goats, Central Rock Gym, and Stepping Stones Children’s Museum. These three groups donated amazing prizes and showed off their dedication to including the D/deaf and hard of hearing community by sharing how they are inclusive.

The HELLO Lab is dedicated to exploring one of the most fundamental aspects of life, language. There are a number of ongoing and future research projects.

Families interested in learning more about the HELLO Lab or seeing future events can go to the HELLO Lab website https://hellolab.speech-language-hearing.uconn.edu/ or Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/HELLOLABUCONN!

The HELLO Lab also wants to thank all of the wonderful community partners that played a role in making this event happen:

• American School for the Deaf
• Central Rock Glastonbury
• Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech
• Cochlear Americas
• Connecticut Association of the Deaf
• Language First
• New England Center for Hearing Rehabilitation
• New England Consortium on Deafblindness – NEC
• Sign Linguistics & Language Acquisition Lab
• UConn ASL Department
• UConn Interpreting Services (UCIS)
• UConn Kids in Developmental Science