WA reaches out to helpAlison Batcheler, The West Australian May 23, 2012, 6:51 am East Javanese nurse Makhmudyah Indri Cahyani with Sari Burger, 5, and Helen Gouilios. Picture: Iain Gillespie/The West Australian
West Australian hearing experts are helping improve the prospects of deaf and hearing impaired children in East Java.
Over the past three weeks, a group of 10 nurses and teachers from the Indonesian province, which shares a sister state relationship with WA, have visited Perth where they have had training in audiology testing for the early detection of hearing deficits and communication skills for deaf education.
This forms part of a two-month course they are completing at the Dr Soetomo Hospital in Surabaya. They will return to East Java to set up five communication and hearing resource centres.
The training visit is the culmination of work by the Patricia O'Sullivan Humanitarian Project - a WA-based charity dedicated to improving hearing and audiology services in East Java - which sent a WA project team comprising a specialist audiologist, teacher for deaf children and psychologist to Indonesia last November.
Audiologist Helen Goulios, who was part of the WA delegation, said it was estimated there were between 1800 and 3790 children born every year in East Java with permanent hearing loss which affected their speech, language and educational development. In hundreds of those cases, maternal Rubella infection - for which there is no public vaccination program - had been identified as the cause.
Limited audiology services and the prohibitive cost meant that most children with significant hearing loss were not picked up until they started school, Dr Goulios said.
"Early identification and intervention before six months of age is now well recognised as being of critical importance," she said.
But even if hearing loss was diagnosed early, Dr Goulios said only one in 10 in East Java had treatment because there were limited services available and costs were out of reach of most parents. A set of digital hearing aids costs about $1000 and a cochlear implant about $25,000.
"All of that, if you are born in Australia, is looked after through government services," said Dr Goulios, clinical coordinator of the University of WA Master of Clinical Audiology course.
"We are doing work to try and find these children in the first place and to provide some intervention but we are also looking at how we are going to prevent the problem and provide hearing aids."
As a result of the project, the East Javanese Government has undertaken to boost the provision of audiology equipment and training in communication.
And in a move that will prevent many future cases of deafness, the Government will also introduce a program of Rubella vaccination, following advice from the WA team.
Dr Goulios said it was the first time the visitors from East Java had travelled abroad.
"They have worked extremely hard because they really want to bring back to their country the knowledge and skills that they have acquired," she said.
Once back in the newly established hearing resource centres, they will provide hearing testing and referral to a hospital for further treatment if required, as well as teaching parents strategies to better communicate with their hearing-compromised children.
WA organisations which contributed to the education program for the visitors included the Disabilities Services Commission, the WA Institute for Deaf Education, the Telethon Speech and Hearing Centre, the Ear Science Institute of Australia and University of WA Audiology
WA reaches out to helpAlison Batcheler, The West Australian
BalasHapusMay 23, 2012, 6:51 am
East Javanese nurse Makhmudyah Indri Cahyani with Sari Burger, 5, and Helen Gouilios. Picture: Iain Gillespie/The West Australian
West Australian hearing experts are helping improve the prospects of deaf and hearing impaired children in East Java.
Over the past three weeks, a group of 10 nurses and teachers from the Indonesian province, which shares a sister state relationship with WA, have visited Perth where they have had training in audiology testing for the early detection of hearing deficits and communication skills for deaf education.
This forms part of a two-month course they are completing at the Dr Soetomo Hospital in Surabaya. They will return to East Java to set up five communication and hearing resource centres.
The training visit is the culmination of work by the Patricia O'Sullivan Humanitarian Project - a WA-based charity dedicated to improving hearing and audiology services in East Java - which sent a WA project team comprising a specialist audiologist, teacher for deaf children and psychologist to Indonesia last November.
Audiologist Helen Goulios, who was part of the WA delegation, said it was estimated there were between 1800 and 3790 children born every year in East Java with permanent hearing loss which affected their speech, language and educational development. In hundreds of those cases, maternal Rubella infection - for which there is no public vaccination program - had been identified as the cause.
Limited audiology services and the prohibitive cost meant that most children with significant hearing loss were not picked up until they started school, Dr Goulios said.
"Early identification and intervention before six months of age is now well recognised as being of critical importance," she said.
But even if hearing loss was diagnosed early, Dr Goulios said only one in 10 in East Java had treatment because there were limited services available and costs were out of reach of most parents. A set of digital hearing aids costs about $1000 and a cochlear implant about $25,000.
"All of that, if you are born in Australia, is looked after through government services," said Dr Goulios, clinical coordinator of the University of WA Master of Clinical Audiology course.
"We are doing work to try and find these children in the first place and to provide some intervention but we are also looking at how we are going to prevent the problem and provide hearing aids."
As a result of the project, the East Javanese Government has undertaken to boost the provision of audiology equipment and training in communication.
And in a move that will prevent many future cases of deafness, the Government will also introduce a program of Rubella vaccination, following advice from the WA team.
Dr Goulios said it was the first time the visitors from East Java had travelled abroad.
"They have worked extremely hard because they really want to bring back to their country the knowledge and skills that they have acquired," she said.
Once back in the newly established hearing resource centres, they will provide hearing testing and referral to a hospital for further treatment if required, as well as teaching parents strategies to better communicate with their hearing-compromised children.
WA organisations which contributed to the education program for the visitors included the Disabilities Services Commission, the WA Institute for Deaf Education, the Telethon Speech and Hearing Centre, the Ear Science Institute of Australia and University of WA Audiology