As the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of children in the Northern Territory continues to hear from communities, a psychologist has delivered scathing testimony about the lack of provisions for screening and managing children with hearing loss.
Darwin-based psychologist Dr Damien Howard has spent decades researching the impacts of early onset hearing problems in Aboriginal people.
One study conducted by Dr Howard and co-researcher Troy Vanderpoll tested the hearing of 134 Indigenous inmates aged between 20 and 60 in Darwin and Alice Springs prisons. The results showed 94 per cent of those inmates suffered “significant hearing loss.”
However, Dr Howard said as far as he was aware, there is no testing for hearing loss in juvenile detention centres – and a lack of staff training to accommodate the needs for hearing-impaired children.
In his submission to the Royal Commission, Dr Howard said communication problems caused by hearing loss were often misread as cultural differences or – in the case of the justice system – non-compliance:
“This is a major factor in why this important issue remains invisible and points to the importance of cross-cultural education for those working with Aboriginal people.”
Dr Howard described how early onset hearing loss in Aboriginal children often set them up on a path to the juvenile justice system.
Listen to the full interview below.
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