'Hunting down Hearing Loss'

Myself and my good friend and fellow student audiologist Lesley began this week's prac in Mariannridge with the aim of finding members of the community with hearing aids in order to start up a group aural rehabilitation- we aimed to 'hunt down hearing loss' in Mariannridge. We thought that the best place to start would be by asking the ladies down at the cafe. These ladies are very involved in various projects in the area, such as the Thursday soup kitchen and the teddy-bear knitting project for children who are victims of rape. They were able to give us the names of 4 different people of various ages who use hearing aids or have hearing loss. It was interesting to note how differently thing work in small communities- everyone knows everyone! It was great being able to chat to these ladies and find out more about what the do in the community. They were pleased to hear about this blog and gladly posed for a photo for it :)

Two of the amazing ladies who work into the Mariannridge community

Before leaving, 2 community members who were at the cafe had concerns about their hearing and wanted to talk to us about it. As we only had our otoscopes on us, we did otoscopic evaluation and then offered advice on which public hospital to go to for a hearing evaluation. This was slightly challenging as one of the community members could only communicate in Zulu, and my Zulu speaking is not yet at a level of having full-on conversations! Thankfully the ladies who run the soup kitchen were willing to help translate for us :)

After obtaining the names of people in the community, we headed over to Mariannridge Primary School to find out if the office staff know of any children who potentially have hearing loss or use hearing aids. The staff were very helpful and suggested that we print out some forms that the individual teachers can fill in to give us accurate information.

Mariannridge Primary School

On our way back up to the clinic, we were greeted by some children aged (I'm guessing) 2-4yrs, who excitedly ran across the road to give us hugs! While I love all the hugs we got, I was slightly concerned about them not being supervised...and running across the road without looking! Thankfully the roads aren't busy in the community, but it just takes 1 car...Anyway, Lesley and I spent some time tying their shoelaces and having 4-year-old conversations with them, and attempted to teach them how to cross the road safely. They seemed to understand, said 'good-bye'...and ran straight across the road without looking again!

Once we had reconnected with the rest of our group, we decided that it would be of greater benefit if some of us went down and did some language stimulation and auditory skills development with the children playing on the road. Plus, at least we could watch over them for an hour or so and prevent them from running across the road! By the time we got back, he children had run off on another adventure, so we headed back to the cafe/library area to look for other children who were not at school or creche. Before too long we had 5 young children join us, so we took them into the library and learned shapes, colours and animals, using a book and an iPad. The librarian was so welcoming and has asked us if we will run a story book session in the library with one of the creches in the area some time. This is a great opportunity for the speech therapy students to join us for a team approach :)

I really enjoyed this week, interacting with various people in the community. I am starting to see the benefit of building a relationship with people in the community, even though we do not work directly with them for assessment or intervention it is so helpful knowing people who are aware of how things run in the area and know everyone else in the community. It is also so encouraging to see how people, such as the ladies who run the soup kitchen and knitting project, care about the community and are making a difference in people's lives!