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10/27/2018  |   10:30 AM - 11:30 AM   |  Kramer Lecture Theater 2

Early Intervention for Hearing Loss in South Africa: A Review of Characteristic of Paraprofessional in a Home-based Early Intervention Programme

The importance of early hearing detection and intervention has been recognized internationally with the development of the JCIH position statement and in South Africa by the HPCSA position statement. However, S.A. has a lack of legislation and policy for early hearing detection and intervention with the position statement offering guidelines for South African implementation. The socio-economic situation in South Africa is such that many families are unable to reach centre-based intervention programmes. The HI HOPES programme offers families intervention in their homes, promoting the development of communication and language within natural routines. The longitudinal data set of home interventionists and deaf mentors registered with the only home-based, family centred early intervention programme for children with hearing loss was analysed. Interventionists and deaf mentors qualifications and demographic information was quantitatively analysed using descriptive statistics. Deaf mentor and interventionists demographics are representative of each province in which the programme operates. Training of paraprofessionals for home-based family centered intervention has been successful in South Africa. Deaf children are achieving opportunities for language and communication development on par with their hearing peers. Training of interventionists and deaf people from within local communities will ensure grassroots community development and de-stigmatise deafness at a community level. The successes experienced in 5 provinces can be rolled out to a national programme.

• Profile of paraprofessionals for early identification of deafness
• Training of paraprofessionals for home-based early intervention
• The role of paraprofessionals and the importance of community development for sustainability

Presentation:
18607_9868SelvaraniMoodley.pdf

Handouts:
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Selvarani Moodley (POC,Primary Presenter), Wits University, selvarani.moodley@wits.ac.za;
Dr Selvarani Moodley is a dual qualified speech language therapist and audiologist, with a PhD focusing on audiology. Her doctoral research was in the area of paediatric diagnostic audiology and data management, with 5 articles currently published from this research. Selvarani works as a researcher and national project manager for the HI HOPES Early Intervention programme at the Centre for Deaf Studies, University of the Witwatersrand.