State Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities K.S. Lathakumari on Thursday said that the Department of Health and Family Welfare had been requested to establish early intervention centres across the State under the National Health Mission (NHM).
So far, the department had set up such centres in Mysuru, Hassan, Mandya, Mangaluru, Kodagu (in Madikeri), Raichur, Shivamogga, Davangere districts and also in Bengaluru city (at Victoria Hospital). In the eight districts, the centres had come up in the district hospitals, she added.
Speaking after inaugurating the International Association of Communication Sciences’ International Audiology Conference at the All India Institute of Speech and Hearing here, she said the initiative of early intervention centre was launched in 2021-22 for providing speech training for hearing impaired children below four years by establishing training centres.
With a large number of hearing impairment cases in the country, the profession of audiology in the healthcare sector became all the more important. AIISH had been in the forefront towards human resource development and provided world-class clinical services in the field of audiology and speech and language pathology, she explained.
She said the government was implementing ‘Grameena Punar Vasathi Scheme’ (Village Rehabilitation Scheme) where Village Rehabilitation Workers (VRWs), Urban Rehabilitation Workers (URWs) and Multiple Rehabilitation Workers (MRWs) were appointed at village and wards, and taluks respectively for the rehabilitation of people with disabilities. They would be working like anganwadi/ASHA workers under district disability officers at the district level. This was a supporting system to the department of health, the Commissioner said.
The theme of the three-day conference is ‘Disability certification of persons with speech and hearing impairment’.
The conference has been organised to provide in-depth knowledge on global perspectives on speech, language and hearing disabilities’ certification. The conference will look into development of disability certification protocols and recommend inclusion of conditions such as central auditory processing disorders, tinnitus, giddiness, aphasia, stuttering, voice disorders and auditory neuropathy spectrum disorders for disability certification.
The conference includes invited talks from eminent professionals working in the field of speech language and hearing disability, scientific presentations in oral and poster formats based on original clinical/research work carried out by the researchers, and panel discussion of research topics by subject experts. Over 300 participants have registered for the conference, including students and professionals in the field of audiology and speech language pathology.
Rangasayee R., Chair - IALP Audiology Committee, and M. Pushpavathi, chairperson, IALP, and Director AIISH, Mysuru were present.
