March 22, 2019
This article has been submitted by The Stephen High School for the Deaf and
Montfort Care.
Problem
Sixty children are born with deafness in India everyday. Many cases go
undetected until long after which the normal language acquisition is no
longer possible. It is a fact that half of all the ‘deafness’ is
preventable or treatable. Nearly one of every 1,000 children are born with a
permanent hearing loss and another two or three in 1,000 will develop hearing
loss later . By identifying a hearing loss early in a child’s life,
families can help ensure age-appropriate overall development.
Solution
Montfort Care is working to ensure that all children get
identified before the age of three years, so that they can learn a language,
study in regular schools and lead a normal life.
People with hearing loss can benefit from assistive devices such as hearing
aids and cochlear implants. These innovations have been positively impactful
and have been a boon in allowing their users to communicate and conduct
themselves socially. But communication can be exhausting even for a
hearing-impaired person, despite having a hearing aid or cochlear implant due
the period of adjustment for installation and follow-up for each device.
Montfort’s major activities involve awareness drives around deafness and
the need for early intervention to the general public and to parents in
particular, screening children for hearing impairments and give
rehabilitation services to children with hearing loss with the aim to
integrate them in mainstream schools.
Our most recent Hearing Screening Camp involved outreach to children from
neighbouring municipal schools, registration of 100 parents and children at
the screening camp. The screening test involved a 1-minute Otoacoustic
Emissions Test (OAE) by an audiologist, after which a pathology report
detailed the need for a follow-up ENT consultation if required. Each
participant parent was also given a brief about looking out for signs of
hearing impairments among children in early childhood, while being given
handouts on this for their respective community outreach efforts.
Outcomes
Firstly, the Hearing Screening Camp demonstrated the potential of early
screening for hearing impairment. In a sample of 100 school children, reports
revealed that 81% of children presented with bilateral hearings sensitivity
within normal limits, 17% of the children with bilateral impacted cerumen
(wax) resulting in minimal conductive hearing loss, and 2% children with ear
discharge resulting in peripheral hearing abnormality. One child was found to
diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder in this sample. High prevalence of
earwax impaction can lead to conductive hearing impairment which can affect
negatively affect learning skills among students. Secondly and in the long
term, poor academic performance is often accompanied by inattention and
sometimes poor behaviour, children with hearing reduced hearing are often
misidentified as having learning disabilities such as ADD and ADHD.
Why this works
Public and private entities are not coordinating support. Medical screenings
for deaf children are the onus of the Brihanmumbai Municipal
Corporation (BMC). However, lack of follow-up mechanism prevents
beneficiaries from making the most of early screening. Instead, school-driven
initiatives (such as Montfort) that drive community awareness through
screening increases access to support services for disability management, and
preventing deafness.
In the long-term, early screening and provision of inclusive supports to
students allow them to be mainstreamed in regular schools. Overall, we
estimate that the cost of educating a student in a segregated school is five
times that of including them in a mainstream classroom. Research supports
that inclusive education offers improved social development and academic
outcomes for all students.
Source: https://newzhook.com/story/21747
