Ms Alison King1
1Hearing Australia, Doncaster, Australia
This presentation will review demographic data for aided/implanted children aged under 12 years, to investigate whether the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic have had an effect on initial hearing aid fittings.
Whilst Hearing Australia’s clinics remained operational during the lockdowns of 2020 – 2021, there is a range of factors that may have led to changes in first-fitting patterns, including the willingness or ability of families to attend appointments, and the effect that changes in schooling may have had upon access to school-based hearing assessments, the role of teachers in identifying listening difficulties and the urgency with which families chose to fit hearing aids to assist in the educational environment. In some areas, cancellation of elective surgeries led to requests for temporary hearing aid fitting to support children who were waiting for grommets to manage hearing loss due to otitis media.
Data for the years 2020 to 2022 will be compared with information obtained in 2017 to 2019, to determine whether it is possible to measure changes in fitting rates and hearing loss profiles for the two cohorts.
Biography:
Alison King is the Principal Audiologist for Paediatric Services at Hearing Australia. She has been a member of the Australasian Newborn Hearing Screening Committee since its inception in 2001.