Women’s society hosts ‘hearing impairment’ seminar
KUWAIT: Al-Bustan Hearing-Impaired Children’s Nursery held a seminar entitled ‘Hearing and Balance Issues’ this past Monday at the Women’s Cultural and Social Society in Khaldiya. The seminar was presented by Dr Ahmad Khater, audiology consultant at the Faculty of Medicine at Zagazig University in Egypt, and a consultant at the Ear, Nose, and Throat Medical Center in Riyadh- Saudi Arabia.
On the sidelines of the seminar, Dr Khater told Kuwait Times that the event was held to spread awareness amongst mothers of children who have hearing problems. “The seminar [was held to give an presentation] on the cochlear implant hearing aid and how to decide to implant it,” he said.
Dr Khater discussed during his seminar how to decide when is the best time to implant the cochlear implant hearing aid, and how to maintain it. He said that early diagnosis of hearing impairment has a lot of benefits for the child, where the ‘golden period of language acquisition’ is from one year to four years of age. “The earlier hearing impairment is diagnosed, the better the result in language acquisition would be,” he said.
He talked about how cochlear implants can help children in acquiring language, and how to develop the child’s linguistic skills. “[Hearing impairment] is a main cause of delayed speech among children,” he explained. “Therefore, it is necessary to perform hearing examination early and decide wither a child needs a cochlear implant or not to develop speech skills.”
Al-Bustan Hearing-Impaired Children’s Nursery founded in 1998, established by Women’s Cultural and Social Society. It was the first of its kind in the Gulf Cooperative Council (GCC) area. Its objective is to qualify children with hearing disabilities to acquire the maximum educational experience according to the capabilities of each child. The nursery develops a unique learning schedule for each child and adopts the most recent methodologies in terms of special education requirements, as well as use of modem educational aids and computers.