13May2015

Australian Hearing
The Government is deferring a decision about the future of
Australian Hearing to investigate the interface between the
Hearing Services Programme and the NDIS, as well as how
best Australian Hearing can continue to contribute to the
hearing and disability service industries in future.

Breaking sound barriers for children born

without a hearing nerve
Hearing loss can be devastating to a child's social
development, and for some children, an auditory brainstem
implant is their last viable chance to hear.

Oh, those people with hearing loss!

Always going on about how we cant hear this and we cant
hear that, wailing over the sounds missing in action, like the
almighty S in speech or breezes in the bushes.

Simple workplace adjustments

The best supports in the workplace can only be discovered
through conversations between employer and employee.

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.

Hearing Services Programme and NDIS

The Office of Hearing Services and the Department of Social Services will be holding a
series of information briefings and consultation sessions with key stakeholders in the
coming weeks on the interface between the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS)
and the Hearing Services Programme.
In 2013, it was agreed that the Hearing Services Programme would be in scope of the
NDIS, along with a number of existing Commonwealth programmes that support people
with disability. This means that by 2019-20 (when the NDIS reaches full roll out), clients of
the Community Service Obligations and Voucher components of the Programme who are
eligible for the NDIS will transition to that scheme. Clients of the Programme who do not
transition will still receive hearing services under the Programme, for as long as they remain
eligible, in the usual way.
NDIS clients (including former CSO clients) will be able to make decisions about their
supports, including who will provide them. Registered NDIS service providers will compete
to deliver hearing services, including Australian Hearing.
A fact sheet with further details has been published on the Office of Hearing Services
website (www.hearingservices.gov.au).
Information briefings for key stakeholders are to be scheduled shortly and consultation on a
transition blueprint will occur shortly thereafter. The input to be provided through the
stakeholder consultations will help us to manage the delivery of hearing services in parallel
with the full introduction of the NDIS, as well as assisting Governments consideration how
best to allow Australian Hearing to continue to contribute to the hearing and disability
service industries in future.
Uncertainty about the interface between the Hearing Services Programme and the NDIS
was also raised by stakeholders as part of the consultation on the scoping study into future
ownership options for Australian Hearing. To allow time for stakeholders to better
understand this issue, including the implications for Australian Hearing, the Government is
deferring a decision about the future of Australian Hearing for several months.
The Office will be working with key stakeholders, including hearing loss advocacy and
hearing practitioner groups, to ensure a smooth transition of clients and sector
preparedness for the full roll out of the NDIS.
The Government said it is mindful of the need to ensure that hearing impaired Australians,
particularly the most vulnerable, continue to have access to high quality, Governmentfunded hearing services.

Deafness Forum notes that the transfer of services to the

NDIS raises a number of significant issues
Transfer of funding
The cost of delivering hearing services under the Community Services Obligations (CSO)
Program will be different to the cost of providing those services under the NDIS. The CSO
Program benefits from the economies of scale available to the Provider of those services
i.e. Australian Hearing. Australian Hearing has to deliver services in the most cost efficient
and effective way as it is limited by the fixed funding allocation it receives to deliver the
CSO Program. There is no profit margin in the funding provided to Australian Hearing to
deliver the CSO Program. The funding arrangements under the NDIS do not have the
same constraints and with multiple providers, there will be no cost advantage to
Government through bulk purchasing arrangements. Therefore the funding from the CSO
Program is not going to meet the cost of delivering services under the NDIS.

What assurance is there that there will be no reduction in services and technology in
order to offset the increase in cost from transferring services from the CSO Program to
the NDIS?

CSO client groups and NDIS

Not all clients who are eligible for services under the CSO Program will be eligible for
services under the NDIS e.g. people aged over 65 years, children requiring hearing
assessment services.

How will services to these client groups be maintained in the future especially if
Australian Hearing is privatised?

The National Acoustic Laboratories, part of Australian Hearing is also funded through
the CSO Program. What will happen to that organisation with the transfer of CSO
groups and associated funding to the NDIS?

Service response times

The pathway for accessing support under the NDIS is to confirm eligibility, develop a plan
with an NDIS planner, choose supports, implement the plan and review the plan. The
pathway for accessing hearing services under the Community Service Obligations Program
is more streamlined and therefore clients are able to access the support they need without
delay. Currently Australian Hearing has arrangements in place to ensure that infants
diagnosed with hearing loss through newborn hearing screening programs and older
children diagnosed with hearing loss are seen urgently so they are provided with
amplification and other support as quickly as possible. The eligibility checking is immediate
and the planning is done with the service provider, i.e. Australian Hearing, so there is no

delay between diagnosis and treatment. The arrangement where there is only one Provider
minimises the risk of infants and older children being lost to follow up.

Under the NDIS what changes can be made to the pathway to ensure that infants and
older children diagnosed with hearing loss are seen promptly, and that they will not be
lost in a system where there are multiple providers?

Expertise
Audiology is a self-regulating profession. There is no formal registration system for
Audiologists or Audiometrists. In theory, a person with non formal qualifications in
audiology can set up in private practice to deliver hearing services. The CSO groups need
to receive services from qualified Audiologists with the knowledge and skills to provide
services to clients with complex hearing rehabilitation needs. These clients often have
multiple disabilities. Once an Audiologist has gained their initial qualification, there are no
other formal qualifications available for Audiologists to acquire skill and knowledge to meet
the needs of Deaf and hearing impaired people with very complex hearing rehabilitation
needs such as Deaf and hearing impaired children, or adults with multiple disabilities.
Currently Australian Hearing as the sole provider of services to these client groups under
the Australian Government Hearing Services Program, provides in house training and
mentoring programs to ensure that their Audiologists have the skills required to see these
more complex client groups.

Under the NDIS how will Providers demonstrate that they have the necessary expertise
to deliver services to these vulnerable client groups?

What arrangements will be put in place to ensure that clients in rural and remote areas
will have access to an equivalent level of expertise as is available in urban areas?

What arrangements will be put in place so that families of Deaf and hearing impaired
children, or clients with more complex hearing rehabilitation needs, will be assured that
their Audiologist has the necessary qualifications and skills to meet their needs.

Access and quality

Currently Australian Hearing has to meet several key performance indicators under its
Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of Health to deliver the Community
Services Obligations Program. This includes a quality monitoring program. It would be
helpful to have more detail as to how the quality of the hearing services program be
measured when services are transferred to the NDIS.

In relation to access, how will services be maintained in rural and remote areas,
particularly in areas that are currently serviced through a fly in/fly out arrangement,
when services are transferred to the NDIS?

Sale of Australian Hearing

Parents of Deaf Children (PODC), Canberra Deaf Childrens Association (CDCA) and
Aussie Deaf Kids (ADK) have sent an open letter to the Prime Minister and the Ministers for
Health, Human Services and also Finance.
Despite the announcement that the government has deferred a decision about the future of
Australian Hearing, the organisations remain profoundly concerned that the government
intends to sell or privatise Australian Hearing.
Australian Hearing is a government service that provides essential audiology services for
babies, children and young adults who have a hearing loss.
PODC, ADK and CDCA have jointly and repeatedly called on the Federal Government to
be open about its intentions with regard to the sale of Australian Hearing. They have urged
the government to consult with families with regard to Australian Hearings future.
Through the Community Service Obligations (CSO program), Australian Hearing delivers a
trusted, well-regarded, high level of quality service to Australian children and youth with
hearing loss. It has a nationwide quality assurance system.
Robert Foote, President of Canberra Deaf Childrens Association fears that deaf children
will be disadvantaged if Australian Hearing is sold and families are forced to turn to private
entities to help manage their childs hearing loss.
Australian Hearing professionals have an unbiased position with regard to the best valuefor-money hearing appliances, because they are not owned by a manufacturer. This
independence combined with true buying power, greatly increases the value of the level of
technology that is returned to users, he said.
The high cost and low returns of providing these services, especially in regional and
remote locations, could result in inadequate services for these areas, added Mr Foote.
Australian Hearing currently has 127 permanent sites throughout Australia and offers
further services through the provision of 368 mobile sites.
Kate Kennedy, Coordinator at Parents of Deaf Children, says families are concerned the
potential sale of Australian Hearing will undermine the success of the entire system for
deaf and hard-of-hearing children and their families.
Newborn hearing screening programs, early intervention, education and social services
are all fundamentally linked to the services provided by Australian Hearing. If one part of
the overall community of support is removed, especially one as irreplaceable as Australian
Hearing, all of the services will be at risk, she said.
PODC, ADK and CDCA call upon the Federal Government to recognise the needs of the
deaf community and not sell this essential organisation.

8th Australasian Newborn Hearing

Screening Conference

SMC Conference and Function Centre

Sydney 19-20 June 2015
The Australasian Newborn Hearing Screening biennial conference presents Australasias best
opportunity to discuss trends in the newborn hearing screening sector, hear about national and
international initiatives, and participate in thought provoking workshops showcasing the
innovative ways in which professionals respond to the challenges they face in continuing to
deliver high quality and newborn hearing screening and related programs.
The Conference program will include keynote presentations by Dr Christie Yoshinaga-Itano and
Dr Guy Lightfoot as well as a wide range of presentations about national and international
research and practice. The program is available here:
http://www.newbornhearingscreening.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Full-Program1.pdf
Dr Yoshinaga-Itano will also provide the 2015 Libby Harricks Memorial Series oration. Since
1999, the Libby Harricks Memorial Oration series has raised awareness of the key issues
relating to hearing impairment
http://www.deafnessforum.org.au/index.php/events/libby-harricks-memorial-oration
Registration, accommodation and venue information can be located on the ANHSC Conference
website: http://www.newbornhearingscreening.com.au/newborn-hearing-screeningconference/anhsc-2015/

Oh, those people with hearing loss! Always going on about how we cant hear this and we
cant hear that, wailing over the sounds missing in action, like the almighty S in speech
or breezes in the bushes.
Take that S for example. The usefulness of this high frequency hissing is over-rated, in
my opinion. Ive made it this far in life without hearing a lot of S-es which is why, for most of
my life, I mispronounced pizza as pee-zuh (said slowly) instead of peet-suh (said
quickly) until someone said I was driving them nuts and could I please say it right. I may
not always hear those S-es, but I know theyre there. A hearing person can hear the
pluralising S at the end of a word, but I have to either sense it or figure it out through life
experience.
But there is another option. Ask your friends and family to avoid using any sibilant (airy,
hissy, hard-to-hear-or-see) sounds in their speech. Yes, thats right - ban the S-es! Try
different ways to pluralize or get a thought across. For example, the Hearing Husband
might ask me, Have the cats been fed since breakfast? A non-sibilant alternative might
be, Have the little cat and her brother had their lunch? Instead of Honey, have you seen
my sandals, try Do you know where I could find the open-air foot covering for my left foot
and the one for my right foot, too?
Nah, forget that, its too much work
More from Gael at http://hearinghealthmatters.org/betterhearingconsumer/

Captioning
Media Access Australia has published Access on Demand, a comprehensive report on the
accessibility of video-on-demand (VOD) services in Australia and other countries.
With people increasingly turning to the internet to watch TV, the report shows that many
VOD services lack captioning and audio description. Only three of Australias five catch-up
TV services provide captions, and most of the subscription services do not.
http://www.mediaaccess.org.au/research-policy/research/access-on-demand-captioningand-audio-description-on-video-on-demand-services

Vitamin supplement successfully prevents noiseinduced hearing loss

Researchers have found a way to prevent noise-induced hearing loss in a mouse using a
simple chemical compound that is a precursor to vitamin B3. This discovery has important
implications not only for preventing hearing loss, but also potentially for treating some
aging-related conditions that are linked to the same protein.
Published today in Cell Metabolism, the researchers used the chemical nicotinamide
riboside (NR) to protect the nerves that innervate the cochlea. The cochlea transmits
sound information through these nerves to the spiral ganglion, which then passes along
those messages to the brain. Exposure to loud noises damages the synapses connecting
the nerves and the hair cells in the cochlea, resulting in noise-induced hearing loss.
The researchers set about trying to prevent this nerve damage by giving mice NR before or
after exposing them to loud noises. NR was successful at preventing damage to the
synaptic connections, avoiding both short-term and long-term hearing loss. NR was equally
effective regardless of whether it was given before or after the noise exposure.
"One of the major limitations in managing disorders of the inner ear, including hearing loss,
is there are a very limited number of treatments options. This discovery identifies a unique
pathway and a potential drug therapy to treat noise-induced hearing loss," says Kevin
Brown, MD, PhD, an associate professor of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at the
University of North Carolina School of Medicine and first author on the paper.
Science News, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141202123840.htm

Read about the new, Visible Classroom

http://aimedia.cmail2.com/t/ViewEmail/t/BCC35A293400FADC/F3640594D5281CB79A8E73400E
DACAB4

Become a Vicdeaf Hero. As one of the Charity Partners for this years The Age Run
Melbourne, we have 15 Charity Champion positions to fill. As a Vicdeaf Hero and Charity
Champion ticket holder you will be asked to raise much-needed funds for Vicdeaf. Being a
Vicdeaf Hero provides you with many exclusive benefits, including no entry fee and a
special starting position to name a few.
If you are a fitness fanatic and looking for the next challenge; or if you would like to work off
your recent Easter Egg indulgences and get fit at the same time, we would love to have you
(and anyone else you know) on board as one of our Vicdeaf Hero Charity Champion
runners. The three race events 5km run/walk; 10km run and half marathon take place on
the 26 July 2015 so there's plenty of time to start training!
What are you waiting for? http://microsites.realbuzz.com/microsites/vicdeaf/

Simple workplace adjustments for people who are

deaf or have a hearing impairment
The best supports in the workplace can only be discovered through conversations between
employer, employee and, if needed, a disability specific employment specialist.
Examples of workplace adjustments that have been used for people who are deaf or have a
hearing impairment include:

Email more frequently and to confirm important conversations.

Re-arrange a work station to help reduce background noise.
Provide written notes or minutes quickly after meetings. Supply agendas, notes and
presentations in advance of meetings.
Arrange seating in meetings and training so that the person can always see the faces of
participants.
Swap telephone or other hearing dependent tasks with team mates for alternative tasks.
If needed, use a sign language interpreter

For more information and suggestions on making workplace adjustments for employees
with specific types of disability visit the government website Job Access at
www.jobaccess.gov.au.

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Breaking sound barriers for children born without

a hearing nerve
Hearing loss manifests in various forms, most of which can be partially restored through
hearing aids and cochlear implants. Hearing aids and cochlear implants cannot help a
small population of individuals who do not have a cochlear, or hearing, nerve. These
people are unable to perceive sound, no matter how loud, outside of feeling vibration.
An auditory brainstem implant (ABI) device is considered revolutionary because it
stimulates neurons directly at the human brainstem, bypassing the inner ear entirely.
"Initial activation of the ABI is like a newborn entering the world
and hearing for the first time, which means these children will
need time to learn to interpret what they are sensing through the
device as 'sound,'" said audiologist Laurie Eisenberg, Ph.D., a
Keck School of Medicine of USC otolaryngology professor and
study co-leader.
"All of our study participants whose ABIs have been activated are
progressing at expected or better rates. We are optimistic that,
with intensive training and family support, these children will
eventually be able to talk on the phone."
Surgeons outside the United States have been doing ABI surgeries in children for more
than 10 years, but there was never a formal safety or feasibility study under regulatory
oversight. In the United States, the ABI is approved for use only in patients 12 years or
older with neurofibromatosis type II, an inherited disease that causes a non-malignant brain
tumor on the hearing nerve, but it has shown limited effectiveness in adults.
Scientists believe that the ABI would be more effective in younger children, when their
brains are more adaptable. The clinical trial will attempt to prove that the surgery is safe in
young children and allow researchers to study how the brain develops over time and how it
learns to hear sound and develop speech.
Hearing loss can be devastating to a child's social development, and for some children, the
ABI is their last viable chance to hear.

Science Daily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150213145047.htm

Replacement processors for pensioners aged over 26

Age and Disability Pensioners who have cochlear implants and are eligible for the
Australian Government Hearing Services Program are not able to access the appropriate,
reliable technology through the Commonwealth Government which they depend on for
social inclusion, productivity, independence and quality of life.
These Eligible Persons under the Hearing Services Administration Act 1997, are not
provided with replacement cochlear speech processors while people who use hearing aids
as their means of amplification rather than cochlear implants are with provided
replacements and upgrades to their hearing aids as required.
The Australian Government Hearing Services Program provides for replacement and
upgraded cochlear speech processors, as clinically necessary, for people under the age of
26.
This inequity impacts the most significantly impaired and financially vulnerable cochlear
implant recipient group.
The National Disability Insurance Scheme will not address the need for a replacement
cochlear speech processor for people currently 65 years of age or older. It will not address
the needs of people who become eligible for an Aged Pension before the National Disability
Scheme is operational in their state or territory and they are deemed eligible to enter the
scheme.
The Commonwealth Government can address this discriminatory inconsistency. According
to Cochlear Ltd, a government investment of $1.5 million per annum for the provision of
approximately 220 speech processor each year will ensure that the approximately 2
thousand aged and disability pension clients currently over 26 years of age will retain a
functioning and reliable replacement cochlear speech processor.

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We encourage organisations to be deafness friendly. In planning meetings and events, choose venues that have reliable
hearing loops, and add real time captions and interpreters to meet the communication access needs of the 4 million
Australians we represent.