1October 2015

Future of Hearing Services

A Senate Select Committee on Health has recommended that
Government does not sell (privatise) Australian Hearing.
No credible justification has been provided for this
intervention, beyond an ideological fixation on introducing
contestability, whatever the consequences.

An ordinary person can change the world

I decided it was easier to change the world than to change
me. Through trial and tribulation, I developed effective
strategies.

Increased sensitivity to everyday sounds

Hyperacusis is a condition that arises from a problem in the
way the brains central auditory processing centre perceives
noise. It can often lead to pain and discomfort.

Future of live captioning

Technology is likely to help with reducing errors and in
cleaning up live captions, but is it possible to provide perfect
live captions?

Student scholarship
Open now for applications - Catherine Bonnes AM Scholarship
assists Deaf and hearing impaired people to further their
education by undertaking post secondary studies.

We acknowledge the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, and their

continuing connection to land, sea and community. We pay our respect 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.

Michael Shepherd dedicated 30 years of service to The Shepherd

Centre in NSW, advocating for the rights of children with hearing
loss.
He recently retired as its chairman and is pictured with children at The Shepherd Centre.
I was young and in my mid-teens when my niece and nephew were born with hearing
loss. Like most people then, I hadnt come in to contact with anyone with hearing loss. My
brother Bruce and his late wife Annette then established The Shepherd Centre in 1970 to
help their children learn to listen and speak. Back then it was called the Council for
Integrated Deaf Education and thats still the essence of what we do. Rather than sending
kids off to special schools, the whole idea was to integrate them into the community. That
was the objective then and that is the objective now.
Im the youngest in the family and Bruce was a bit of a father figure to me so I spent a lot
of time with him and Annette. I dont think they understood at the time just what they
were starting. It just didnt seem such an extraordinary thing to me at the time because Id
basically grown up with it.
Our philosophy hasnt changed its about integration and the methodology of teaching
the parents as much as we teach the kids. There are, however, changes to our teaching
approach. We used to teach a lot of lip-reading whereas now thats not the case. The
biggest change has been in the improvement in technology in both hearing aids and
cochlear implants.
If you listen to the speech of children in the earlier days compared to their speech now
there is a huge improvement. Our kids are equivalent to their hearing peers when it comes
to speech and vocabulary and thats an amazing achievement when you think about it.
That certainly wouldnt have been the case 30 or 40 years ago.

One of the things Ive been insistent on is that we

standards to fit more people in. From our research and
have one of, if not the best programs in the world and
more as our clinicians give papers at conferences across

should never sacrifice our clinical

talking to others, we know that we
that is being recognised more and
the globe.

If you sacrifice your standards, your influence could easily decline. You can have an
influence far beyond the children youre helping because of the standards and the research.
People look at what were doing and are influenced by it, which means other children
around the world benefit from our work as well.

How an ordinary person can change the world - at

least start the process
Imagine waking up one day and learning that your
daughter has a hearing loss.
Imagine finding out the access your daughter needs
doesn't exist in this country but does elsewhere.
Then imagine that you could be the catalyst to effect
change in this country.
I don't have to imagine it, since that is what I did. No one
was going to force our family into some alternative
"special" universe. I decided it was easier to change the
world than to change me.
Through trial and tribulation, I developed effective
strategies. These are some of the tactics that I used.
12345-

Don't be afraid to ask for what you need

Research the contact person
Don't accept anything for free
Keep a contacts record
Provide solutions and not rants

Read more from Janice S. Lintz, consultant, consumer advocate, journalist and traveler at
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janice-s-lintz/how-an-ordinary-person-ca_b_7756394.html

Launch of "Australians at the Deaflympics"

Deaf Sports Australia will launch an "Australians at the Deaflympics" display in Melbourne.
The display will be opened at 9am on 15 October at the National Sports Museum at the
MCG. It will be open to the public from 10am.
Exhibits will highlight aspects of a rich Deaflympic history including medals, torches, lights
and uniforms that were worn by successful athletes. There will be a video, audio and text
presentation via the Conexu app that will showcase various stories and historical
happenings throughout the Deaflympic Games.

Future of Hearing Services in Australia

A Senate Select Committee on Health has recommended that Government does not sell
(privatise) Australian Hearing.
Australian Hearing provides hearing services to clients eligible under the Australian
Government Hearing Services Program. This government owned organisation includes the
National Acoustic Laboratories.
In 2014, the Government commissioned a scoping study to investigate issues and options
relating to a sale. It has not released the full report.
Current options are:
Keep the status quo. However, the NDIS will affect Australian Hearing regardless of
future ownership

Investigate what can be done within Government which raises questions around
competitive neutrality
Private ownership

A Senate Select Committee on Health held hearings to receive evidence from stakeholders
from throughout the sector.
It recently published its report, available at
http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Health/Health/Third_I
nterim_Report
Recommendation 1: Based on the evidence and the concerns outlined by stakeholders, the
committee recommends that Australian Hearing should not be privatised.
Recommendation 2: The committee recommends that the government provide clarity
around the work already done on the transition of the Hearing Services Program to the
National Disability Insurance Scheme. Any 'blueprint' or implementation plan should be
made public as soon as it is finalised, so as to reassure stakeholders that the quality
services provided by Australian Hearing continue to be available in order to ensure that
hearing impaired Australians can live the life they deserve.
Senator Jenny McAllister, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Health commented
on the release of the report:
I was shocked by the lack of clarity provided by the departmental witnesses about how
this level of specialisation is to be provided under the new model. I was shocked by the
lack of detail about the new model that is proposed, and, like Senator O'Neill, I was
shocked by the lack of consultation and engagement with the affected community. This is
not a process that is being handled well.
People who are vulnerable who already face disadvantage on many fronts do not need a
process foisted upon them that is difficult to engage with, that adds uncertainty and
difficulty to their lives and that leaves them without any clarity at all about how their needs
will be met in the future.
You will know that the committee's recommendation is that Australian Hearing should not
be privatised. We should be very careful about the destruction of institutions that have
been carefully built up over decades to play a very important role in the public health of
Australians. If it is not broken, then we probably should not seek to fix it. No credible
justification has been provided for this intervention, beyond an ideological fixation on
introducing contestability, whatever the consequences.
I say to people here: think very carefully before you meddle with an institution such as
Australian Hearing.

Keep in touch with Office of Hearing Services

RSS (Rich Site Summary) is an electronic alert system for people interested in being made
aware of new content published on a particular web page.
If you would like an alert whenever new content is published on the Office of Hearing
Services website, heres what to do.
Go to http://www.hearingservices.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/hso+content/rss/main to see a
screen like this:

Select the dropdown (Subscribe to this feed using). We selected Microsoft Outlook so
we can receive updates through our office email system, Outlook.
Moments later, we checked our emails and lots of items such as those highlighted above in
blue font appeared in the folder (below).

Future of live captioning

Will machines take over the captioning world and automatically provide perfect captions on
live programs, events, meetings and the classroom?
Although there has been considerable advancement in this area, the levels of accuracy are
nowhere near the kind achieved by human captioners and this is unlikely to change in the
next few years.
Technology is likely to help with reducing errors and in cleaning up live captions that are
put onto catch up television versions of programs so that they are synchronised and errorfree. But is it possible to provide perfect live captions? The nature of live captions means
that there will always be the potential for some errors.
People no longer watch live television exclusively on a television set. The use of mobiles,
tablets and laptops have changed the way media is consumed. With these devices, the
playout, formatting and other presentation are dependent on the settings of the device.
This means that standards of quality measuring those things could be meaningless.
More from Media Access Australia, http://www.mediaaccess.org.au/latest_news/news/thefuture-of-live-captioning

Strategic alliances with primary care medicine

Leverage peer-reviewed health science to build a physician referral base
The growing awareness of age-related hearing loss as a public health concern represents a
monumental opportunity for hearing care professionals to touch the lives of more patients
in need of their services. This can only occur if professionals are willing to form
partnerships with primary care physicians around the triple threat of untreated age-related
hearing loss and the comorbid conditions associated with it.
Early intervention of age-related hearing loss and its consequences has the potential to
allow individuals the ability to maintain an active and participatory life as they age.

Knowledge
To
access
this
report,
visit
Deafness
Forums
http://www.deafnessforum.org.au/index.php/knowledge-centre
15,000 people visited the webpage in the last year.

Centre

at

Visit the Conexu website, http://www.conexu.com.au/

Catherine Bonnes AM Scholarship

The Broken Hill & District Hearing Resource Centre Inc. is a voluntary based not-for-profit
organisation that supports Deaf, hearing impaired people and people with an associated
disorder of the ear in its region.
The Catherine Bonnes AM Scholarship assists Deaf and hearing impaired people to further
their education by undertaking post secondary studies.
The Scholarship consists of financial assistance towards a degree at an accredited
Australian university, college of advanced studies or other such intuitions deemed
appropriate by the Scholarship panel. Recipients of the Scholarship will be known as
Catherine Bonnes AM Scholar.
Further information: Phone: (08) 808 86191 or 08 8088 2228; hearthis@australiaonline.net.au

Increased sensitivity to everyday sounds

Hyperacusis is a condition that arises from a problem in the way the brains central auditory
processing center perceives noise. It can often lead to pain and discomfort.
Individuals with hyperacusis have difficulty tolerating sounds which do not seem loud to
others, such as the noise from running faucet water, riding in a car, walking on leaves,
dishwasher, fan on the refrigerator, shuffling papers. Although all sounds may be
perceived as too loud, high frequency sounds may be particularly troublesome.
As one might suspect, the quality of life for individuals with hyperacusis can be greatly
compromised. For those with a severe intolerance to sound, it is difficult and sometimes
impossible to function in an every day environment with all its ambient noise. Hyperacusis
can contribute to social isolation, phonophobia (fear of normal sounds), and depression.
Prevalence And Causes Of Hyperacusis
Many people experience sensitivity to sound, but true hyperacusis is rare, affecting
approximately one in 50,000 individuals. The disorder can affect people of all ages in one
or both ears. Individuals are usually not born with hyperacusis, but may develop a narrow
tolerance to sound. Other common causes include:

Head injury
Ear damage from toxins or medication
Lyme disease
Air bag deployment
Viral infections involving the inner ear or facial nerve (Bells palsy)
Temporomandibular joint (TMJ) syndrome

There are a variety of neurologic conditions that may be associated with hyperacusis,
including:

Post-traumatic stress disorder

Chronic fatigue syndrome
Tay-Sach's disease
Some forms of epilepsy
Valium dependence
Depression
Migraine headaches

Hyperacusis is seen in brain injured children (due to the universal sensory sensitivity), some
autistic children, and some children with cerebral palsy).

Diagnosis of Hyperacusis
Individuals who suspect they may have hyperacusis should seek an evaluation by an
otolaryngologist (ear, nose, and throat doctor). The initial consultation is likely to include a
full audiologic evaluation (with a hearing test), a recording of medical history, and a
medical evaluation by a physician. Counseling about evaluation findings and treatment
options may also be provided at that time.
Treatment for Hyperacusis
There are no specific corrective surgical or medical treatments for hyperacusis. However,
sound therapy may be used to retrain the auditory processing center of the brain to
accept everyday sounds. This involves the use of a noise-generating device worn on the
affected ear or ears. Those suffering from hyperacusis may be uncomfortable with placing
sound directly in their ear, but the device produces a gentle static-like sound (white noise)
that is barely audible. Completion of sound therapy may take up to 12 months, and usually
improves sound tolerance. Because social situations are often painfully loud for those with
hyperacusis, withdrawal, social isolation, and depression are common.
Hearing Loss
Hearing tests usually indicate normal hearing sensitivity and often register at minus decibel
levels. Counter to what one might think, this does not mean that those with hyperacusis
hear better than others. Instead, it is a clear indication of a problem in the way the brain
processes sound. Hearing loss coupled with low tolerance to sound is another termed
recruitment, a condition where soft sounds cannot be heard and loud sounds are
intolerable (or distorted). For example, a person with recruitment may have hearing loss
below 50 decibels while at the same time; sound above 80 decibels may be intolerable.
The result is a narrow range of comfortable hearing.
Relation to Tinnitus
Hyperacusis is strongly associated with tinnitus, a condition commonly referred to as
ringing in the ears. Nearly 36 million Americans suffer from tinnitus; an estimated one of
every thousand also has hyperacusis. Individuals can have tinnitus and hyperacusis at the
same time.

Know someone who might like to receive One in Six?

To subscribe, drop us a line to info@deafnessforum.org.au
Have something to contribute? Lets hear from you.

Find us on Facebook

Disease leaves wombats deaf and blind

Of the three species of wombat, two are endangered by
sarcoptic mange, spread by parasitic mites, which cause
blindness and deafness and can kill them.
Scientists from the University of Western Sydney have
developed an app the wombat survey and analysis tool
(WomSAT) which allows members of the public to
upload sightings of wombats with details of the animal's
condition.
Julie Old, the head investigator on the project, told
Guardian Australia: "Their skin gets thickened and they
can become deaf and blind as well.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/australia-two-wombat-species-endangered113924330.html#I52cP1Z

Keen volunteer needed

The NSW Government has invited Deafness Forum to nominate a representative to join its
Transport for NSW Accessible Transport Advisory Committee.
While the public transport network has made efforts to be more accessible in recent years,
there is still considerable work to do.
The Committee will assist Transport for NSW to identify barriers in accessing public and
private transport networks.
There are no sitting fees or reimbursement of meeting attendance costs offered. If this
opportunity interests you, please send an email to info@deafnessforum.org.au
By way of background, you can read our views on accessibility at our Issues webpage,
http://www.deafnessforum.org.au/index.php/issues
Scroll downwards to find the
information beneath this image:

The International Symbol for Deafness identifies places that

provide consistently functional hearing augmentation services.
Being an approved and registered user of the Symbol is a simple
and swift process that begins with your email inquiry to
info@deafnessforum.org.au
Approved use of the Symbol will
be good for terms of up to two financial years.

For organisations that are members of Deafness Forum of Australia; and for
not for profit community, education and religious organisations
there shall be no fee for each two years of license for each place.

For small businesses that we believe are setting an example that larger organisations
should follow, they shall be acknowledged at our discretion with a reduced or no fee at
for each two years of license for each place

For other commercial entities and for government departments, their agencies
and publicly owned institutions an administrative fee shall be applied for each two
years of license for each place. A reduced fee shall apply for multiple places.

Providers of related advice and/or technical services might consider their duty of care in
ensuring clients are aware of the requirements of the domestic trademark owner, Deafness
Forum of Australia.
http://www.deafnessforum.org.au/index.php/find-out-about/37-accessresources/resources/170-hearing-loops1

Something unexpected and nice happened

We received a letter enclosing a cheque from the Aherns group in South Australia - We
recently held an employee Casual for a Cause day where employees wore casual clothes
in exchange for a gold coin donation.
Deafness Forum was the chosen beneficiary.
Ahrens is a fourth generation, family business with construction and engineering operations
throughout Australia. The business was established in 1906 in the Barossa Valley by
Johann Karl Wilhelm Ahrens (Wilhelm). For the first 50 years, Wilhelm and his son, Bill, ran
a blacksmith shop that served the local farming community. In 1960 Bills son, Bob, joined
the company and being an entrepreneurial engineer, he grew the business by extending its
product range to include grain silos, field bins, rural sheds and stone and land rollers.
You are good people. On behalf of our members, danke sehr. Thank you very much.

Auslan courses in Victoria

Sign Language (Auslan) classes will be held at various locations in Melbourne and Geelong
in the week beginning 19 October. http://www.vicdeaf.com.au/auslan.asp

Need Cochlear Implant batteries?

CICADA Queensland provides a competitively-priced battery service. The regular price is
$40 for members and $45 for non-members for one box of 10 packets. For further
information including postage costs, email info@cicadaqld.com.au

Items in Deafness Forum communications incorporate or summarise views, standards or

recommendations of third parties or comprise material contributed by third parties or sourced from
items published in the public domain. Our intention is to attain balance and be representative of all
views within the sector we represent, however this may not be attainable in particular
communications. Subjective censoring of materials will not occur. Third party material is
assembled in good faith, but does not necessarily reflect the considered views of Deafness Forum,
or indicate commitment to a particular course of action. Deafness Forum makes no representation
or warranty about the accuracy, reliability, currency or completeness of any third party information.