Sound system aids pupils with hearing problems

Teacher Connie Horne uses a microphone headset to teach a class at Western Heights Primary School in Rotorua. Picture / Alan Gibson

Twenty-three Rotorua schools have installed sound systems in their classrooms after a survey found a third of their students had suffered from "glue ear".

The study, financed by hearing aid company Oticon, found that 32 per cent of the students at five Rotorua schools had suffered middle ear dysfunction (glue ear).

Using Oticon's "sound-field" system, teachers speak into portable microphones and the sound is distributed through loudspeakers.

This technique raised students' listening comprehension compared with the average for their age groups by nine points in a rich school and by 15 points in a poor school, Sunset Primary in the city's Ford Block.

The Rotorua Energy Trust has paid $300,000 towards installing the system in 23 Rotorua primary and intermediate schools, paying for two classrooms for every room that schools fund themselves.

The Auckland Airport Community Trust has paid more than $200,000 to put the same system into eight schools in the airport flight path in Manukau, and the Mt Wellington Charitable Trust has paid $100,000 to install it in 16 schools in Mt Wellington and Panmure.

The National Audiology Centre says 13.5 per cent of Maori 5-year-old school entrants, 15.7 per cent of Pacific Islanders and 6.7 per cent of other school entrants have hearing loss, mostly caused by glue ear.

Most children who get glue ear, usually after a cold, get better naturally within three months.

But the problem persists in about a fifth of cases and experts advise draining their middle ears with tiny grommets, which fall out naturally in six months to a year after the problem is fixed.

Starship hospital audiologist Dr Andrea Kelly said many children failed to get grommets and needed a good sound system in the classroom to avoid falling permanently behind.

"Sound-field systems are good for all children. They cause less strain for the teacher, and it does help children with mild hearing loss," she said.

Brent Griffin of Western Heights Primary School, one of the five in the original Rotorua study, said the school tried to get glue ear treated whenever it was found, but it could not keep track of students moving in and out.

"We have such a huge turnover rate that we don't know how many are coming in with hearing loss," he said.

"Kids don't get to the doctor when they are sick. The doctor may well be free, but they don't get there. Petrol has become an issue ... so children are walking to and from school."

Mr Griffin said 20 or 30 of the school's 350 students came to school in bare feet even on frosty winter days, many wearing only a light T-shirt.

About 50 parents kept their children at home on wet days because they did not have raincoats until the KidsCan charity recently gave all students adidas-sponsored raincoats.

The decile 2 school, which is 87 per cent Maori, has children suffering from nits, scabies and "school sores", a blood disorder which can be treated if children get to a doctor.

In one case, deputy principal Sue Francis had to take a 6-year-old girl to hospital after she had been sick all week and finally became delirious.

She turned out to have pneumonia.

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