1 April 2015 

We acknowledge the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, and their continuing connection to land, sea and community. We pay our respects to them and their cultures, and to elders both past and present. We acknowledge the challenge that faces Indigenous leaders and families to overcome the unacceptably high levels of ear health issues among first Australians.

Young Australian of the Year We catch up with Drisana Levitzke-Gray.

Entrepreneurs that audiologists hate

A hearing aid package which eliminates the need to visit a specialist has not endeared the entrepreneurs behind it to their audiologist peers.

Review of curriculum for Diploma in Nursing Enrolled Nurses are employed in a wide range of nursing fields and can be influential in recognising the needs of people in their care who live with a hearing difficulty.

Cochlear Implant Upgrades The decision was unexpected and has caused concern among families, particularly those who have already lodged an application for an upgraded processor as that application is now likely to be rejected.

Human Rights trainer – position availableDeafness Forum invites applications to participate as its representative in an international Train the Trainers workshop on the Human Rights Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Vietnam.

A review of the curriculum for the Diploma in Nursing for Enrolled Nurses is being conducted nationally. Enrolled Nurses are employed in a wide range of nursing fields and can be influential in recognising the needs of people in their care who live with a hearing difficulty.

Deafness Forum has made four key recommendations to the review.

Need 1. Hearing assistance needs to be adequately identified in appropriate parts of the curriculum. The government requirement that units of competency be simplified and streamlined will result in the use of generic descriptors within the units – this will create uncertainties. Given the widespread lack of knowledge and understanding of hearing impairment, course designers and teachers may not recognise hearing assistance as being part of broad generic requirements. Deafness Forum is requesting that appropriate generic descriptors closely related to hearing assistance are included in relevant units of competency and backed-up in the accompanying teaching guide with a brief but specific statement of the hearing assistance that needs to be provided.

Need 2. Hearing assistance needs to be presented as an integral part of nursing care, particularly for our increasing elderly community. Australia has a very good government Hearing Services Program which provides fully or partially subsidised hearing aids to eligible people including pensioners and veterans.

Nurses (and carers) need the skills to assist clients to manage their aids effectively where necessary otherwise use of hearing aids is likely to be abandoned. Currently only one in four Australians who need hearing aids use them.

Need 3. There is a crucial need for Enrolled Nurses to be equipped to support and oversee implementation and maintenance of hearing assistance in residential and in-home care as well as in hospital settings. With the inclusion of hearing assistance in the Diploma, Enrolled Nurses would be well placed to provide the necessary mentoring support and oversee measures to introduce and sustain hearing assistance.

The general support of Registered Nurses is essential but they seldom have time to oversee routine hearing assistance and may not have received training in this area.

Need 4. Enrolled Nurses would be well placed to ensure that patients' hearing aids or alternative listening devices are used and cared for while in hospital. Hearing impaired patients often experience real difficulties in using their hearing aids or alternative listening devices while in hospital and loss or damage to these items is sufficiently common that many people are discouraged from taking them to hospital.

This situation is unacceptable from both a medical assessment and compliance perspective and because of the great stress it can place on vulnerable hearing impaired patients. Lost or damaged hearing aids are expensive to replace whether this cost is borne by the patient and/or by the government.

Enrolled Nurses are trained to take part in hospital admission and discharge procedures and, with a knowledge of hearing assistance, would be well placed to contribute to rectifying the present situation.

Sign Online is an introductory course in Auslan (Australian Sign Language) and deaf culture. It's been created by Deaf Education Network, the education department of the Deaf Society of NSW. http://www.auslanonline.nsw.edu.au/

Hearing aid entrepreneurs audiologists hate Larissa Nicholson, Business Review Weekly

A hearing aid package which eliminates the need to visit a specialist has not endeared the entrepreneurs behind it to their audiologist peers. But Dr Elaine Saunders and Professor Peter Blamey say positive feedback from clients who previously could not afford to address their hearing problems makes up for the criticism. Both respected scientists in their own right, Saunders and Blamey are the Melbourne team behind IHearYou: a system which allows ordinary people to test their own hearing, buy hearing aids online and adjust them to get them working in the best possible way, all without visiting a specialist. “In Australia, more than four million people have hearing loss and most don’t do anything about it because of prohibitive costs, distance from services and perceived stigma. “Unfortunately, untreated hearing loss often leads to physical, cognitive and mental health complications,” says Saunders, herself a trained audiologist. “IHearYou removes these cost and distance barriers. We’re disrupting a cosy, overpriced industry. And we are working hard to address the social stigma.” http://www.brw.com.au/p/tech-gadgets/the_hearing_aid_entrepreneurs_whom_HpAGv2tRIbTZoSJtq7ErZM

Interview with Drisana Levitzke-Gray, Young Australian of the Year 2015 David Brady and Todd Wright, respective chairs of Deafness Forum of Australia and Deaf Australia spoke recently with Drisana. How did you feel at the moment it was announced you were the 2015 Young Australian of the Year? There are no words to adequately sum up the feeling at that exact moment when they announced me as the recipient of the Young Australian of the Year Award. It was mixture of happiness, excitement, shock and an overwhelming sense of honour. Once we received our awards, we were rushed out back towards the Parliament House where there was a flurry of activity, with media and print journalists waiting to take photos and conduct interviews. I did an interview with Sky News, then a radio interview with ABC. After about two hours, all the award recipients managed to return to family and friends where we could share our excitement with our loved ones, who had lots to say to us! There must have been many amazing people you met at the Australia Day awards ceremony. Did you have a chance to share with them Auslan and promote the national language of the Australian Deaf community? I did indeed meet a number of lovely people during the Australia Day awards ceremony and throughout the course of the weekend. We had an official morning tea with Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, and dinner with the Governor General as part of the functions over the weekend and I was able to get to know some of the impressive nominees a little better – it was an amazing group of people drawn from different walks of life and experience, all contributing to change for the better in Australia. I managed to teach some well-known people a bit of Auslan, including Adam Goodes, AFL player for Sydney Swans (and previous Australian of the Year); Deborra-Lee Furness, adoption advocate, actress and wife of Hugh Jackman; Dr Tim Soutphommasane, Race Discrimination Commissioner, and so on. There was never a moment when I wasn’t promoting and sharing our very wonderful and beautiful language, Auslan, with all the guests and finalists of the Australia Day Awards. How busy were you after winning the awards? We saw you on television a few times. Did you have to travel to each studio or were you able to be interviewed from

one location? Did they provide any interpreters to ensure that your message gets across to their audience? Extremely busy! I could never have anticipated exactly how busy I was to become. I was given media advice and tips from the Australia Day Council representative whilst at the Awards about the fact that things were going to take off, and that I have a right to say no to some projects/requests. There is no funding attached to the award at all, so it’s not that I receive any bursary to cover my costs to take on additional work or to travel etc – it’s all done voluntarily unless an organisation offers a fee or to cover travel etc. It wasn’t till the first week had passed that I started to worry, “oh my gosh, is this what the rest of the year will be like?!” in terms of how busy it was and just how much attention the awards had drawn. Very exciting in terms of raising the profile of Auslan and of the Deaf community, but also a little overwhelming for a 21 year old juggling part time work and studies and living in Western Australia (not ideal for travelling to the east coast!). The morning after the Awards, all the award recipients had about 5 interviews with different media companies (7, 9, 10, ABC, Sky News) from 5am to 8am. So I was up at about 4am to drive over to the Parliament House where all the studios were – these are studios specifically for news regarding the parliament and government. I had 3 interpreters with me that whole weekend so everything worked out just fine and the interpreters did a great job ensuring my message came across. For the other interviews since the awards weekend (magazines, newspapers, Sunrise etc), I requested the studios organise and cover the cost of compatible interpreters, and that has all worked out well so far. They all instantly recognised the importance of having a suitably skilled Auslan interpreter if they wanted to interview me, and access to date has not been an issue. I’ve had a couple of trips since to the east coast for awards-related commitments and media obligations, but I have also done some of my interviews from Perth. What was the best moment for you in winning Young Australian of the Year? The recognition, publicity and the media and Australia’s interest and attention regarding Auslan and the Deaf community. It’s a long time since we had a national platform of this nature to use and to promote our beautiful language as well as to raise the profile and status of the Deaf community. The whole Awards weekend and presentation was an amazing experience personally, but nothing can beat the fact that this was really a win for the wider Deaf community in terms of raising awareness of the concept of “Deaf gain” not “hearing loss”, and conveying the message to wider society that it’s OK to be Deaf! What message do you hope to promote in your year as the award winner? I am promoting the beauty of Auslan, how it is a language that belongs to Australia, and is used by a community of people that can be considered a linguistic minority. While promoting and encouraging Australians to celebrate and embrace Auslan, I want to also highlight the harsh truth that Deaf children suffer when they are denied their right to have full access to a language where they can communicate and express themselves completely. Linguistic impoverishment in the early years for Deaf children when deprived of

access to a visual language may lead to them experiencing mental health issues, isolation, and low self-esteem, not to mention poor educational outcomes, under-employment and unemployment. We must take action to improve access to Auslan for Deaf children in infancy, support hearing families in their efforts to learn it, expect educational institutions to embrace Auslan as a viable first language for Deaf children, and promote it as a valuable second language for LOTE (Language other than English) teaching in schools to hearing children too, to encourage a more accessible and accepting society in general. Auslan as a LOTE programs in schools also allow Deaf children to formally study Auslan in the same way hearing children study English. In addition, we need more funding for research on Auslan, and a greater investment in resources and opportunities to learn Auslan (teacher training, materials etc). Deaf people should also be able to access messages and information in the wider community in Auslan, via for example, Auslan interpreted broadcasts of emergency updates during times of crisis, or Auslan translations being available on websites, particularly for government services/agencies etc. What things have you learnt from this experience that we could benefit from to create positive exposure for Deaf Australians, and their families?

We all need to work together for the common good, the greater cause. We need the government to take responsibility for the well-being of our Deaf children. We need constant positive exposure about Auslan, and about the Deaf community. We need many more Deaf role models out there, meeting the parents of newly diagnosed babies and families of Deaf children, so they know that their child too can aspire to be whatever they dream to be. We need reliable funding for programs such as the Auslan for families, a project which is already developed and run by the WA Deaf Society but does not have recurrent funding from the government. Such a program should become national, and available for every family to access. Parents can access Better Start government funding of $12,000 per child, yet only half of that sum can be used for parents to access Auslan programs. The full amount however is able to be used by parents for “therapy” services, including speech therapy, if they so wish. Why does the allocation discriminate against access to Auslan programs? We need to change the attitude and mentality of the government and of Australian society and to remove the stigma associated with using sign language. To do this, we all need to work together - united we stand, divided we fall. What do you think are the top three issues affecting the Deaf community today?

My response is skewed to an extent based on my particular platform and there are many other issues I could have raised, however my key concerns are:

1. The right of Deaf children to have access to Auslan from birth (in the home, school etc).

2. Appropriate and recurrent funding is required for Deaf service providers and organisations.

3. Access to emergency broadcasts on TV via Auslan (whether natural disasters or man made such as the Sydney Siege) and Auslan translations on relevant websites.

 

  

Cochlear Implant Upgrades

Australian Hearing receives an annual funding allocation from the Department of Health to deliver hearing services to people who are eligible for services under the Australian Government Hearing Services Community Service Obligations Program. The allocation includes funding to provide upgraded technology for children and young adults up to the age of 26 years who have been fitted with a cochlear implant.

A new cochlear implant speech processor was recently released by Cochlear Ltd. Australian Hearing has advised that it is unable to meet the demand for the new technology from the current funding allocation and has introduced criteria to limit access to the new processor.

Australian Hearing has advised that its inability to meet the number of requests for the new speech processor is not related to funding cuts. Australian Hearing has reported that the demand was higher than expected and therefore exceeded the funding allocation.

It is not known whether the funding shortfall will be corrected in the next financial year or whether the limitations on access to the new technology will continue.

The decision to apply a fitting criteria was unexpected and has caused concern among families, particularly those who have already lodged an application for an upgraded processor as that application is now likely to be rejected.

An additional concern is that the Department of Health has indicated that components of the Community Service Obligations Program will be transferred to the National Disability Insurance Scheme and is currently estimating the funding that will transfer between the two Programs. It is critical that these estimates recognise that the existing funding levels for cochlear implant upgrades are inadequate to meet demand for children under the Community Service Obligations Program.

If you wish to obtain more information, Australian Hearing has provided a generic email address: Info@hearing.com.au

Human Rights trainer – position available Deafness Forum invites applications from suitably qualified and available individuals to participate as its representative in an international Train the Trainers workshop on the Human Rights Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), 4-6 September, 2015 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The aim of the workshop is to provide the participant with sufficient skills and knowledge to deliver CRPD/human rights training to the hearing impaired, hard of hearing sector in their own country. Travel to Vietnam, accommodation for 2 nights (room sharing where feasible) and meal costs will be paid for. This is a volunteer position. We invite you to nominate for this exciting human rights training opportunity. The deadline for receipt of your application is Wednesday 22 April 2015. After training you will: be involved in promoting the signing and ratification of the UNCRPD and then its

implementation and monitoring in their country. monitor opportunities to provide input into various UN instruments and support them to

develop interventions. research and input as requested to the international CRPD Human Rights programme. deliver the human rights national messaging and strategies through training forums. inform the international Human Rights programme about national opportunities as well

as successful interventions as a means of sharing good practice. liaise with other international organisations as appropriate to facilitate and strengthen

the CRPD/human rights message. QUALIFICATIONS Active links to and networks through the hearing impaired, hard of hearing sector Post-secondary education in a related field an asset Personal experience of hearing loss issues an asset Basic understanding of human rights legal concepts an asset Experience in teaching adult education an asset To obtain the background information and application criteria, email info@deafnessforum.org.au

Ruins of ancient audiology centre discovered off coast of WA

An international team of archaeologists has unearthed the ruins of an ancient hearing health care centre on a remote and uninhabited archipelago near Port Hedland, Western Australia.

The team from the University of Bologna, Italy believes that the number of building foundations and artefacts already discovered on the site suggests that it could have been the centre of a flourishing and sophisticated practice dating back to more than 1500 years ago, completely unknown to historians until now.

The site was first noticed on satellite pictures taken in 2014 using newly developed ground-penetrating radar.

Remains of what is thought to be an ancient audiologist

Team leader, Professor Guillermo Moriondo, whose forebear was the inventor of the espresso machine, claims that the extent of the site and the superposition of various layers of constructions, suggests that it was occupied for 400 to 500 years, from approximately 470 AD until the 9th Century. He believes that it was a unique and thriving centre for ear care in the Indian Ocean basin.

Unearthed: early hearing aid

“This was certainly a technologically advanced audiological centre that practised a level of international trade,” says Professor Moriondo. “It would have been very influential throughout the region with an extensive network of clients reaching as far as Indonesia, Malaysia, China and India.” The team speculates that the ancient centre was abandoned because of fluctuating ocean levels, causing the disappearance of sophisticated treatments and hearing technologies unrivalled until the present day.

Artist’s impression of the hearing health care centre, circa 470 AD

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