In this issue

• From the online groups
• Classroom Access Project
• New website for teens launched
• Articles of interest
• What's on in April
• Klemzig on BTN
• Application for temporary exemption from ASTRA
• Barry - the Better Hearing Bear
• Rating restaurants on their noise
• Sports Corner
• Join our online parent forums
• Make a donation

This month my 'baby' turns 21. These milestones are always a time of reflection for parents and I thought I would share some of mine.

Bonny was diagnosed with a unilateral hearing loss when she was 4. She developed a perilymphatic fistula at 7 and lost a significant amount of hearing in her good ear. We have been on a steep learning curve - twice.

As parents, I think there are some things we have done right and certainly times where we might have done better. We were proactive about her schooling. She changed schools twice - once in Year 3 and then in Year 10. Her needs changed over time and we were able to find schools that better satisfied these changing needs. The stress over the Christmas holidays wondering if we had made the right decision was never good, but each move was a positive experience which helped her learn and grow.

We encouraged her to advocate for herself. At every meeting we ever had with a teacher they were so grateful that she could articulate her hearing needs and let them know when she was having difficulty. Towards the end of high school, she wanted to do it all herself which wasn't easy as a parent. It is hard to let go. But we needed to acknowledge that she had a better handle on her needs than we did and was quite capable of making sure they were met.

Our home environment hasn't been very accommodating for a child with a hearing loss. Although we did invest in a loop for the lounge room and bought a TV that could show closed captions, we have lived without carpet or curtains and in places with high ceilings which have made the listening environment challenging for her. Bruce is a huge music fan and there has been a constant tussle between his and Bonny's listening needs. She doesn't often win.

Even if the music was loud, there were places to explore, friends to play with, books to read and lots of discussion around the dinner table.

Most of her success is due to Bonny herself. She is an excellent hearing aid and FM user. She can laugh at herself and sometimes cries. She has worked hard to achieve her goals. She wants to be a great chef. She wants to travel. She wants kids.

It is all over to her now. Happy 21st Bonny.

info@aussiedeafkids.org.au

There has been interest in the new hybrid implants in children in the online group this month.

Hybrid implants are for people with a mild to moderate low frequency sensorineural hearing loss sloping to a profound loss in the high frequencies. For these children, a hearing aid doesn't provide access to high frequency sounds and a cochlear implant doesn't let them benefit from their residual hearing in the low frequencies.

Think about the cochlea like a piano. If you were to straighten the cochlea with the wide end on your right and the apex or top of the cochlea on your left, it is arranged like a piano keyboard. The high frequency sounds cause the hair cells at the base of the cochlea to vibrate (the right hand side of the piano) and the low frequency sounds cause the hair cells in the top of the cochlea to vibrate (the left hand side of the piano). In someone with a high frequency hearing loss, the hair cells at the base of the cochlea are damaged but the hair cells at the apex can be functioning fairly well.
You can imagine what a piano piece would sound like if only the low frequency keys were working. It would not give you the kind of musical experience you know and enjoy. You probably couldn't make sense of or recognise the piece.

Why are high frequency sounds important?
Carol Flexer in her article 'The Power of Hearing' says, "Vowel sounds (such as o, u, ee, etc) are low frequency sounds and they are the most powerful sounds in English; they cause speech to be audible. Consonant sounds (like sh and s) are high frequency sounds and are much weaker; consonants allow speech to be intelligible. In order for speech to be heard clearly, both vowels and consonants must be acoustically available."

Children are not able to listen like adults listen. Their auditory system is still maturing and they don't have the experience with language to be able to infer information from what they hear. Children need access to speech which is both audible and consistently intelligible to develop good spoken language.

The hybrid implant can give the child with a high frequency hearing loss access to these important high frequency sounds.

The hybrid implant
The idea behind the hybrid implant is to use a shorter array of electrodes that only stimulates the high frequency area at the base of the cochlea but preserves the hair cells at the apex so low frequency residual hearing is not affected.

The hybrid implant takes advantage of both implant and hearing aid technologies - it provides access to the high frequency sounds through the implant and the low frequency sounds through acoustic amplification.
There are a couple of hybrid implants used in Australia today. Talk to your audiologist or ENT if you would like more information.

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There are some exciting new projects being trialled at the moment to assist children with a hearing loss in mainstream classrooms.

Media Access Australia announced that their first pilot of a model classroom for students who are deaf or have hearing impairment in mainstream schools has been successfully trialled at La Salle Catholic College in Bankstown. The pilot program, which facilitates access to captioned audiovisual material, was set up in Week 1, Term 1 and will continue until the end of Term before Easter.

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This is something that might be worth keeping an eye on for your teens.

Arielle Schacter, a pretty amazing young lady in the US, has created a website to help teens who struggle with hearing loss issues.

The website, bf4life-hearing or "best friends for life minus hearing" was launched in February. The site, designed by 15-year old Arielle, is designed to provide teens with hearing loss up to date information on hearing issues and a forum for teens to use as a social connector to meet other teens with hearing loss.

"I never meet another person just like me who is deaf or hard of hearing. I started thinking that if I can't meet people who have a hearing loss, then probably tons of other kids have the same difficulties!" said Arielle Schacter, the founder and of the bf4life-hearing.

It is still early days and hard to judge at this will stage how it will go but definitely worth having a look - even for the YouTube clips.

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Only one article of interest this month but it might be useful for the school holidays.

When will children disobey parents? It depends on the rule.

"As all parents know, children often want to do exactly what their parents don't want them to do. In three areas that children often consider parts of their personal domain - clothing, friendship, and leisure activities - having a degree of choice over decisions is important for children's sense of identity and mental health. A new study that considered connections between control over issues within children's personal domain, identity, and emotional well-being has found that children make important distinctions between different kinds of rules."

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Laser Tag for Deaf Youth - 7 April
"Big Kids" Junior Basketball Development - 10 April
Unspeakable 2010 - 12 April
Powerhouse Museum visit - 14 April
Bowling for Deaf Youth - 14 April
6th National Deafness Sector Summit - 23-24 April
Accessible Music Pathways - 23 April
8th National Deafblind Conference - 28-30 April
Auslan Heritage School - RSVP - 28 April
Auslan Introduction Course - starting 30 April
Literacy Workshop - 13 May

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Klemzig Primary School and Centre for Hearing Impaired has recently featured on BTN on the ABC.

The primary school and the Centre for Hearing Impaired are totally integrated to provide a bilingual/bicultural program where Deaf/hearing
impaired and hearing students learn in Auslan (Australian Sign Language) and English.

Go to the link below, scroll down to Episode 5 (16/03/2010) and click on 'Hearing School.'

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If your kids like watching pay TV and enjoy captions, you should be aware of this development.

ASTRA have made an application to the Australian Human Rights Commission for a temporary exemption on behalf of the subscription TV channels they represent.

The Commission has the power to grant a temporary exemption, if the applicant (in this case, ASTRA) makes and meets commitments to improve access or opportunity within a reasonable period. In other words, ASTRA has offered to do certain things, which improve access for people who are Deaf or have a hearing impairment in relation to captions. In general terms, this means that if the Commission grant the exemption, the Commission will not take complaints from consumers on the matters covered by the temporary exemption, for the duration of that temporary exemption. You can see ASTRA's application at the Commission website.

Deafness Forum is drafting a response to this application for temporary exemption. You can send your comments or suggestions to Deafness Forum or write your own submission. The deadline is 2 April.

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Better Hearing Australia (Vic) has launched a bear named Barry who looks cute and cuddly.

All profits from the sale of Barry go towards providing advisory services to the Victorian Community.

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One of our members was having dinner with a friend who is an acoustics engineer and found out about this great initiative of the Australian Acoustical Society.

CRAI is a rating system for cafes and restaurants in Australia according to their acoustic environment.

Everyone can rate a restaurant they have recently visited. The data, once processed, leads to a star rating for each restaurant. The more feedback, the more reliable the star attribution.

You can hop on the website and find places with good acoustics or fill in the rating form after you have had a meal out and make a difference for everyone - especially our kids!

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April shapes as a very exciting time for Deaf Sports Australia with the launch of their first schools education workshop at the
Victorian Colleague for the Deaf in Mid April. DSA will be running two workshops, one for primary and one for secondary students. A further 4 workshops will be held at other schools in April and May with others planned to follow later in the year.

The workshops would deliver the following information:

- the health and social benefits of sports participation;
- sporting opportunities available through the Australian Sports Commission National Sports Organisation Network and National Deaf Sporting Organisations;
- profiling deaf sports role models and
providing an active demonstration of what
you can achieve as a deaf person through sport.

Following on from each workshop DSA would
work as a case manager, via MSN, email and Facebook with each student to identify their
sporting needs and work to place them within a local sporting club including:

- making contact with the identified
sporting club and providing deafness
awareness and sport specific training and advice;
- facilitating the student's initial introduction to the club; and
- maintaining regular contact with the club
and student to monitor progress.

The workshops mark an important time in
DSA's development as they actively engage
with Deaf School children and start to
target and deliver a program aimed at
improving the health of the 'next generation'
of deaf adults.

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You can help Aussie Deaf Kids by donating online. We use the Our Community secure online donations facility. Your donation will go directly into the research and development of content for the website which will assist parents to make informed choices about raising their deaf child.

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