The Aussie game saving kids around the world

KIDS all over the world are starting school at a disadvantage because one problem is being misdiagnosed. An Australian invention is changing that.

CHILDREN from as far afield as China and the United States will benefit from an Australian developed game that is stopping misdiagnosis of ADHD.

Thousands of kids around the world are develop hearing problems in the first five years of life. But because they’re not routinely tested before school, many are walking into classrooms and struggling to hear and pay attention.

Summer Hunter is one such child.

Just before she started school, family friend Carolyn Mee was working on a mobile app designed to detect hearing loss in youngsters.

She asked Summer’s mum Anthea Hunter if she could use the four-year-old as a case study.

Ms Hunter was under the impression Summer had no hearing issues — she had passed her infant hearing checks without a problem and her preschool teachers believed she was doing fine.

But when Summer started playing Sound Scouts — the game Ms Mee was developing — Ms Hunter was in for a shock.

“At first, she played the game and it seemed okay. But, as the game continues, the background noise is gradually increased. And, as the noise increased, Summer could no longer hear the game’s instructions. It was really shocking to see that she could no longer hear,” Ms Hunter said.

Summer Hunter passed her newborn hearing tests, so her mum Anthea was shocked to find out she was struggling to hear when she was four.

Summer’s hearing loss was picked up after she played a video game that a family friend was developing.

Further tests revealed Summer had ‘sensorineural loss’ — a severe hearing loss that she was born with. She’d had no serious childhood illnesses, which is often a cause of hearing loss in children, so Ms Hunter hadn’t thought about having hearings tests.

Also, there was no history of hearing problems on either side of Summer’s family.

“Summer’s hearing loss means that if she’s doing group work at school, she can only hear what’s happening on her table if there’s not much background noise. But, once there’s background noise, she cannot hear the people she is sitting closest to. So it really has a serious impact on her life,” Ms Hunter said.

Summer has now had a formal hearing assessment, wears hearing aids, and is doing well in school.

But thousands of kids around the world are slipping through the cracks, because they’re living with hearing loss that nobody knows about.

Ms Mee told news.com.au that one of the key drivers in developing the app was she was fascinated with the idea that video games can use play to deliver serious results.

“I was very keen to translate this fascination into a project. I also discovered hearing issues were a major problem among our indigenous population and that in Australia, unlike almost all other OECD countries, we do not check children’s hearing at school entry,” Ms Gee said.

“In developing the App we tested the hearing of over 1000 children — both normal hearing and hearing-impaired — on both the App and with a paediatric audiologist. We’re working towards Sound Scouts being used as a hearing screening tool by all Australian children starting school and whenever families have concerns about their child’s hearing.”

An Aussie video game is changing classrooms around the world

There’s no universal hearing screening program for children entering Australian primary school, which means many kids are starting school with hearing loss.

These kids can be inattentive, easily-distracted and find listening to instructions difficult. Many will end up being misdiagnosed with an attention deficit disorder, leading to needless and potentially dangerous prescription medication use.

Dr Henry Cutler, from the Macquarie University Centre for the Health Economy, is in the process of evaluating Sound Scouts to determine the lifetime benefits of screening upon entering school.

“It’s extremely important parents test their child’s hearing, beyond the new born test. Because if a child goes undiagnosed with hearing loss, it can have lifetime [of] consequences in terms of mental health, income and employment,” Dr Cutler said.

“The newborn test is good for testing congenital hearing loss at birth, but some kids acquire hearing loss in the first five years of life. So it’s very important for kids to be tested before entering school, so parents know they can fully engage in the classroom.”

Sound Scouts recently won a Data Innovation Award for ‘Best start-up’ and they’re working to release into the US. Even though, in the US, children’s hearing is checked multiple times throughout their school years, Ms Mee believes Sound Scouts will make testing easier, more fun and potentially more effective.

“Also, in China hearing loss is the most common disability and yet there are few audiologists, so technology is an ideal solution,” Ms Mee said.

Sound Scouts is now receiving funding from NSW Health and it can be downloaded via an app. As for Summer, she’s now eight and wears a hearing aid and she’s been doing extremely well at school. both academically and socially.

“Summer was completely unaware she had a problem at all, she thought it was just normal that she would stop hearing if the background noise became too loud,” said Ms Hunter.