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Deaf defying mission | The Courier-Mail
SPEECH pathologist Dimity Dornan is about to create her own "butterfly effect" by taking her program for hearing-impaired children worldwide.
The woman who set up Brisbane's Hear and Say Centre 15 years ago, symbolised by the butterfly which is born deaf, will fly to Moscow on Monday to train Russian and Balkan health professionals.
She will also visit Germany and plans to launch a pilot project in Papua New Guinea next month.
"We want to create a ripple effect using the successful program that we've developed in Brisbane," Ms Dornan said.
"What we're hoping is that every team we train will train more teams and this will build exponentially throughout the world."
A meteorologist coined the term "butterfly effect" in the 1960s, suggesting that something as subtle as the flapping of a butterfly's wings in Brazil could create a disturbance that could ultimately cause a tornado in Texas.
Ms Dornan recently set up Hear and Say Worldwide aimed at improving communication for the hearing-impaired internationally.
"We're standing at a point in time where polio was decades ago . . . when we can decimate the very significant effects of childhood deafness, the most common disability in newborns," she said.
"We have the ability to do that."
However, Ms Dornan said only about 8 per cent of the world's hearing-impaired children and adults had adequately trained health professionals to treat them.
Although 93 per cent of Australian hearing-impaired children are able to attend mainstream schools, she said internationally, the figure was much lower.
"In Europe, they only get 33 per cent into mainstream schools and in developing countries, they have nothing," Ms Dornan said.
She said the highly successful Brisbane program was based on identifying hearing-impaired children as early as possible, accessing cochlear implants or hearing aids and teaching them to listen and speak with help from their parents.
"They can learn to speak absolutely normally as long as you start early enough, you have the best hearing technology and trained hearing health professionals," she said.
More than three million children under the age of five worldwide are estimated to have a hearing impairment.
SPEECH pathologist Dimity Dornan is about to create her own "butterfly effect" by taking her program for hearing-impaired children worldwide.
The woman who set up Brisbane's Hear and Say Centre 15 years ago, symbolised by the butterfly which is born deaf, will fly to Moscow on Monday to train Russian and Balkan health professionals.
She will also visit Germany and plans to launch a pilot project in Papua New Guinea next month.
"We want to create a ripple effect using the successful program that we've developed in Brisbane," Ms Dornan said.
"What we're hoping is that every team we train will train more teams and this will build exponentially throughout the world."
A meteorologist coined the term "butterfly effect" in the 1960s, suggesting that something as subtle as the flapping of a butterfly's wings in Brazil could create a disturbance that could ultimately cause a tornado in Texas.
Ms Dornan recently set up Hear and Say Worldwide aimed at improving communication for the hearing-impaired internationally.
"We're standing at a point in time where polio was decades ago . . . when we can decimate the very significant effects of childhood deafness, the most common disability in newborns," she said.
"We have the ability to do that."
However, Ms Dornan said only about 8 per cent of the world's hearing-impaired children and adults had adequately trained health professionals to treat them.
Although 93 per cent of Australian hearing-impaired children are able to attend mainstream schools, she said internationally, the figure was much lower.
"In Europe, they only get 33 per cent into mainstream schools and in developing countries, they have nothing," Ms Dornan said.
She said the highly successful Brisbane program was based on identifying hearing-impaired children as early as possible, accessing cochlear implants or hearing aids and teaching them to listen and speak with help from their parents.
"They can learn to speak absolutely normally as long as you start early enough, you have the best hearing technology and trained hearing health professionals," she said.
More than three million children under the age of five worldwide are estimated to have a hearing impairment.