Dr Traci Flynn1, Ms Michele Clapin1, Mr Chris Koros1, Mr Jason Gavrilis2
1Hearing Australia, Sydney, Australia, 2National Acoustic Laboratories, Sydney, Australia
Biography:
Dr Traci Flynn is a Project Lead in the First Nations Services at Hearing Australia with over 25 years’ experience working with people with hearing loss. She has been at Hearing Australia for three years and her work focuses on leading upskilling and clinical service delivery projects. Her previous work focused on examining the speech and language development and quality of life in children with hearing loss in Australia and Sweden. She is also affiliated at the University of Newcastle (Speech Pathology Discipline).
Abstract
Addressing hearing loss is critical to empowering children to achieve educational outcomes and developmental milestones. To increase the number of children who are developmentally on track to listen, learn, and thrive in their early years, Hearing Australia and peak Australian educational, health and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander bodies collaboratively designed the national program Listen to Learn (L2L) targeting children aged three to eight years attending an early educational care and service or school.
L2L included service delivery and professional education. Clinicians screened children’s ear health and hearing and followed-up with diagnostics and/ or a review. In addition, educators participated in professional learning to increase their skills to identify ear disease, listening and communication challenges, to prevent ear disease, and to modify learning environments.
The ear health and hearing of approximately 4,500 children across Australia were screened. Notably, 67% of all children passed ear health and hearing screening, while 18% were referred for diagnostics and 13% for review. Of the children whose hearing was assessed, 53% of the unhealthy ears presented with compromised hearing. Furthermore, 8% of children with poor bilateral ear health at screening presented with persistent poor ear health at review. Nine children (0.2%) were diagnosed with sensorineural loss. In addition, 1,688 learners participated in professional development. Outcomes indicate increased confidence among educators post-training. Findings from the program highlight that younger children exhibit poorer ear health than older children and underscore L2L’s significance in addressing hearing-related challenges while emphasizing the necessity of sustained support for early intervention initiatives.