The Ministry of Education is to roll out free hearing and speech diagnostic tests for the nation’s primary school students, acknowledging that many children develop speech and hearing problems that go undiagnosed owing to the absence of diagnostic testing at an early age.
The ministry is praising its collaboration with a service charity to ensure that every child across the primary school system in Infants B and Class 4 will be tested to examine how they hear speech and respond.
The announcement was made at the launch of the Rotary Club of Barbados West-Ellen Steinbok Hearing Project at the ministry’s headquarters in Constitution Road.
Minister of Education Kay McConney emphasised the need for intervention to screen children: “What we need to do is to find a pathway for those students whose parents were not health-seeking at the early stages of education.”
She acknowledged that some parents do not opt for testing due to various reasons, such as transport issues, and stressed that the testing is not mandatory.
McConney added that she was pleased that through the Barbados Rotary Club West, more children will be tested. She said the ministry was soon going to roll out an initiative to ensure that students are tested for sight, speech and hearing challenges which can impact their learning abilities.
“Even as we move to expand the diagnostic testing for hearing, sight and speech, we are finding perhaps the greatest challenge with regard to the speech screening and testing. There’s only one single speech therapist within the public system and I am told that there are only seven in the private sector,” she said. “So, even with the best effort, we are not able to get access to the amount of quality resources that we need to be able to service.”
As plans to implement education reform take shape, McConney also said her ministry was in talks with health officials to determine best practices as it relates to full diagnostic screening and will be making proposals on the way forward.
Prime Minister Mia Mottley said this matter was one close to her heart as her aunt developed a hearing challenge during her childhood and it deprived her of reaching her fullest potential.
Saying that she did not want this to be the case for any child going forward, she noted her disappointment that public diagnostic testing had to be reintroduced in the education system after it was “abandoned” several years ago.
Mottley said that in 1997, the then Barbados Labour Party administration was successful in gaining support to implement a diagnostic testing programme for children aged three and five, making Barbados the first country in the Americas to do so. She said a survey back then showed that 5.27 per cent of children were having challenges.
The prime minister said children who were taught online during the heightened phases of the COVID-19 pandemic were especially put at a disadvantage due to the challenges associated with the online platform.
The Ellen Steinbok Hearing Project was first introduced in November 2020 as a pilot project at the Good Shepherd Primary involving 58 students and a seven-year-old student was found to have bilateral sensory hearing loss.
Due to challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, the Rotary Club of Barbados West had to introduce the project in a different way the following year. Twenty teachers at Erdiston Teachers’ Training College received training in a sign language course.
During the club’s 2021/2022 programme year, the organisation was able to screen all Infants B students across the school system.
Of the 1 914 students screened, 84 children were referred for follow-up, eight received services for impacted wax removal, two were treated for middle ear infections, and four with permanent hearing loss were identified and fitted with hearing aids.
During the 2022/2023 programme year, 1 657 Infants B students were screened. Of those, 183 were referred for follow-up, seven children required wax removal, three were treated for middle ear infections and another four children were found to have permanent hearing loss.
The 2023/2024 screening programme is yet to begin. The free tests are to be administered by medical students of the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, the Barbados Community College and Ross University.
sheriabrathwaite@barbadostoday.bb
