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18
PART II SPECIALIST SERVICES
AUDIOLOGY SERVICE
Mr. J.C. Oakley, Peripatetic Teacher of the Deaf
1967 was a very busy year for the Audiology Clinic; 1,087 children
were tested by pure tone audiometer, this included routine follow up
cases, cases referred by School Medical Officers and 504 Sweep Test
failures. Regular clinics were held at Lodge Road, Parkway, New
Addington and Whytecliffe Road, Purley.
The pre-school children requiring auditory training, were seen regularly
in the clinic or at home and additional speech training was given
by the speech therapists. The pressure of this work was eased considerably
in September when a Nursery Unit was opened in Kingsley Infants
School. The last of the 3 speech training machines provided by the Corporation
was received during the early part of the year and an additional one
was presented to the clinic by the Surrey Region of the Deaf Children's
Society. The presentation was made at their Annual General Meeting in
the Fairfield Halls.
70 babies were seen at the special clinic held in conjunction with
Dr. Morgan, for the early ascertainment of deafness in young babies, 9
of these were referred to Mr. Stewart, one of the Corporation's Otologists.
This clinic has been very successful in diagnosing deafness in these very
young babies, enabling a hearing aid to be prescribed and auditory training
commenced with the minimum of delay. Early diagnosis and the institution
of auditory training, together with a hearing aid, greatly improve the outr
look for a child with impaired hearing.
99 children were seen by either Mr. Parsons or Mr. Stewart, who held
regular sessions at Lodge Road Clinic and Kingsley Infant and Junior
Units. 11 hearing aids were recommended, 5 of these were National Health
Service 'Medresco' aids and the other 6 commercial aids paid for by the
Corporation. Commercial aids are considered necessary if the hearing loss
is greater than the range covered by the'Medrescc' aid, or if there is a
sharp perceptive loss in the higher frequencies. The 'Medresco' aid has
no automatic volume control and cannot be tolerated by children with
such a loss, as the hearing for low tones is often normal and a general
amplification of sound causes a considerable amount of distortion and
may become painful.
During the year, all infant schools were visited at least once and
apart from absentees and unco-operative children (523), all children
newly admitted to school during the year were tested. Of the 6,528