Modern equipment for the disabled

MANY children aren’t aware that they are living with disability.

Whether its undiscovered hearing impairment or flawed vision, their potential in doing well academically is reduced.

An article published by The Fiji Times on March 4, 1981, reported that schooI children in rural areas suffering hearing or sight disabilities were helped with modern equipment.

The national committee of the International Year of the Child had given $11,540 to the Ministry of Education to buy hearing and visual screeners.

The equipment was to be be used in nine rural educational districts in the country where proper facilities were not readily available.

The Ministry of Education’s adviser on special education, Frank Hilton, said recent surveys showed that some children in rural schools failed to achieve their full academic potential because of an undiscovered hearing loss or because of defective eyesight.

“The child himself does not know what normal vision or normal hearing is so he or she is not able to tell his or her teacher what the problem is and consequently the disability goes undiscovered,” he said.

He said with this in mind a program was introduced using a screener audio-meter which detects hearing loss and a visual screener which tests in a simple and effective way a child’s near and distant sights.

“Already the machines are in operation in Suva, Labasa, Savusavu, Eastern Division and Nausori.”

Mr Hilton said the same program would be introduced in Rakiraki, Ba, Lautoka and the Sigatoka districts.

Education officers in the various districts are coordinating the program.

According to Mr Hilton, most of these officers have been trained simple techniques of screening to conduct the program properly. As the machines could be operated by either battery or main supply, the screening could be done in the remote rural schools.