The National Acoustic Laboratories supports Hearing Care for All by providing tools, evidence-based recommendations, emerging technology validations and building collaborations with our growing ecosystem. Thanks to you, our collaborators, who have helped us with our mission to change the lives of people with hearing loss.
We are celebrating hearing this week with NAL’s top 5 in 2020:
- NAL’s report on the state of hearing health in Australia that provided guidance to develop a National Hearing Awareness Campaign.
NAL hopes to raise public awareness of ear and hearing health with the state of hearing health report. This will provide guidance to the Department of health on the development of a national hearing awareness campaign. (link to AHH article)
- Recommendations for patient-centred outcomes measures for Adult Rehabilitation in Hearing Service Program – a first in hearing healthcare.
This study addressed the lack of consensus, both in Australia and internationally, on which outcomes should be used to measure the success of hearing rehabilitation. NAL took a data-driven approach and worked with over 70 stakeholders from across the industry including clinicians, consumers (clients), device manufacturers, professional organisations, client advocacy groups and charities, researchers, and policy makers to reach consensus. Four outcome domains were identified: communication, wellbeing, personal relationships, reduced [social as removed] participation restrictions. Contact NAL for further results.
- NAL Mask-Adjust tool to help hearing aid wearers understand the speech of mask-wearers, and is widely adopted by clinicians and the industry.
NAL wants to help all Australians with hearing loss to optimise their conversations when others are wearing face masks. The NAL Mask-Adjust is a simple adjustment tool that you can use to help offset the effects of face masks on speech intelligibility. This research-based solution has been tested in everyday clinics and made publicly available to anyone who wants to help hearing aid wearers understand the speech of mask-wearers. (link to AHH article)
- A screening tool for Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders children 0-6 years old so that earlier intervention can be received.
PLUM and HATS are screening tools that are co-designed by researchers, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander primary health workers and early educators to identify hearing and communication difficulties in young children so that they can receive early intervention. Featured on SBS radio and various media shares, the official website for Parent-evaluated Listening and Understanding Measure (PLUM) and the Hearing and Talking Scale (HATS) went live in 2020. (link to AHH article)
- Connecting with the world through our first webinar platform which has now advanced to co-present hot topics in the industry with our growing ecosystem.
NAL’s Soundbites webinar series demonstrated agility and collaboration by hosting 15 webinars and engaged with over 800 registered audience from 26 countries in 2 months! Our growing ecosystem includes a wide range of organisations, from manufacturers, journals to hospitals and research institutions. (link to AHH article)
On World Hearing Day, NAL’s Head of Audiological Science, Mel Ferguson, and MD of Ida Institute, Lise Lotte Bundesen, hosted a #HearingChat on twitter. Important and topical questions in the Audiology world were raised in the #HearingChat with open invite to discussions and debates. There was a huge amount of twitter activity from across the world. Use the hashtag on twitter to catch up on the tweets!
