Page 2655 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 10 August 2016
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providing information, linkages and capacity building for the hard of hearing, the deaf and those with chronic disorders of the ear in our community. Each year for as long as I can remember, the ACT Deafness Resource Centre has held an expo during Hearing Awareness Week which helps draw attention to the growing range of services and products available to help people with hearing loss in our community.
There are, by some estimates, millions of people in Australia who are affected by hearing loss. Some facts provided by the Australian Network on Disability show that one in six Australians are affected by hearing loss and that there are approximately 30,000 deaf people who use Auslan in Australia. Projections for the year 2050 indicate that one in every four Australians may have a hearing loss by that time. That is one in four Australians. It may be partly to do with our ageing population, because hearing loss can be associated with ageing, but it can also be associated with illness or injury. Noise injury is one of those forms of injury which can impact on people and cause them to lose their hearing.
It is interesting to note that 90 per cent of children born with hearing loss are born into hearing families.
In Australia generally, there are over four million people who have some form of disability. Hearing is something that we all take very much for granted but it is vital to our everyday communication and vital to our quality of life. Individuals who have hearing and then lose it later in life can suffer the effects of that very keenly. They may no longer be able to enjoy music the way they used to. They might struggle in the workplace to understand what is going on. They might struggle to use a telephone. They might struggle to hear the voices of their children or grandchildren.
Whilst the onset of hearing loss might be gradual with age, every individual’s hearing needs are unique. As I have already said, exposure to loud noise can be a significant factor in hearing loss but is one of the most obvious preventable causes of hearing loss.
There is a wide range of services and technologies available to assist people who have lost their hearing. However, some people struggle to afford them. Whilst you may get hearing aids through the federal government program as a child, as an adult access to assistance might be much more limited. I have heard instances of mothers who have chosen not to buy batteries for their hearing aids in order to put food on the table for their children. While some young people in their 20s might be saving up for an overseas trip, other people in their 20s are saving up for their next lot of hearing aids.
These days we have newborn hearing screening, which generally takes place in the hospital very soon after the birth of a baby. This can identify hearing loss in a baby and assist with the identification of a hearing loss so that parents can be offered options as to what they would like done or what they feel is the best pathway for their child. For some, it might be becoming Auslan-using children; for others it might be a cochlear implant, hearing aids or a combination of a number of different solutions.
People who are deaf or hard of hearing face many barriers every day. Access to Auslan interpreters is another area where there can be difficulties. Also, there is a lack of awareness in the community about how hearing loss affects a person’s life. Just
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