Nicole Lawder
Chief Executive Officer
Deafness Forum of Australia
Email: nicole.lawder@deafnessforum.org.au
Web: www.deafnessforum.org.au

After much soul-searching Deafness Forum of Australia decided to produce an election questionnaire booklet. Our members wrote to their local candidates, asking them to respond to the 20 questions in the booklet. Our questions were divided into 4 categories:

1. Health and wellbeing
2. Education and training
3. Workforce participation
4. Access

and covered a range of topics within those categories such as Auslan interpreters, teachers of the deaf, education, justice, tourism, hearing aids, cochlear implants, Auslan for Employment, real time captioning, indigenous hearing health, and more.

Along with each question, a reasonable amount of background material was provided in the booklet, as we recognised that not all candidates would be knowledgeable in the area of deafness. For example, one question about newborn hearing screening contained the following information:

Newborn Hearing Screening and Early Intervention
Newborn hearing screening is still not universal in Australia. The current situation in the States and Territories is as follows: in NSW, state-wide newborn hearing screening has been running for 4 years; in SA, 98 per cent of the population is currently being screened. The ACT has 100 per cent coverage. Tasmania and Queensland are introducing universal hearing screening, in Victoria screening is limited to at risk only.

In those areas and communities where newborn hearing screening is available, it has had a very positive impact in the community (both amongst parents/families and professionals) in raising the awareness of potential hearing loss in infants.

Research, clinical practice and experiences reinforce the tenet that children who enter early intervention before six months of age will have the greatest opportunity to achieve their fullest potential across all developmental domains. The most effective way of detecting infants with hearing loss early enough to promote the best possible outcomes is through universal neonatal hearing screening for all newborns.

The failure to deliver a universal Newborn Hearing Screening program would result in unfavourable outcomes for Deaf and Hearing Impaired children in terms of communication skills, educational achievement, mental health and quality of life, not to mention the substantial costs to the government and the community as a whole.

“I wish we had found out sooner. I can not waste any more time – he is so behind already.” Dad of three year old Jayden who is hard of hearing, Melbourne.

Deafness Forum supports partnership with the States and Territories to ensure a comprehensive delivery of the Universal Newborn Hearing Screening program and other early intervention services. This should mean greater certainty and consistency for parents.

Prevention, early detection and early intervention should result in vastly improved outcomes for Deaf and hearing impaired children in terms of communication skills, educational achievement, mental health and quality of life. This then would ultimately translate into substantial cost savings, both to the government and the community as a whole.

Once a hearing loss or deafness has been identified there must be effective early intervention programs implemented in response.

Parents of children who are Deaf or have a hearing impairment do not always have access to the information they need to make an informed decision regarding their child’s schooling. In order for parents to make an informed choice of schooling for their children it is essential that they should have all options explained to them clearly and in a non-biased way.

Question 2: Would you support Universal Newborn Hearing Screening throughout Australia?

Deafness Forum also wrote to the national President of each political party asking for their views on the issues facing Australians who are Deaf or have a hearing impairment. The response to both Deafness Forum and to our members, was mixed. In some cases very detailed responses were received, in other cases no response at all. Unfortunately we received no response from the federal Australian Labor Party, although most other parties responded with lengthy and detailed responses to each of the 20 questions. The responses were available on our website, as they were received, but have since been removed given the elapsed time since the election.

However we believe that the booklet encapsulates our systemic advocacy agenda and will be a useful resource for the future.

It was an interesting experience for us. Hopefully the ALP in government will provide responses in action rather than words.