NT audiologist Rebecca Kopke-Bennett’s warning on World Audiology Day

After swapping classrooms for clinics, a graduate audiologist has revealed the reason behind her career change and shared her hopes for the industry’s future on World Audiology Day.

Rebecca Kopke-Bennett with a patient.

Rebecca Kopke-Bennett swapped classrooms for clinics when she launched her career as an audiologist this year.

Ms Kopke-Bennett was the first to graduate from Charles Darwin University’s Master of Clinical Audiology at the start of 2024, leaving behind a two-decade legacy of work in the Territory’s education system.

Her draw to the field stemmed not only from her work as a high school psychology teacher, but her son’s experience with hearing loss.

“He needed to have surgery done on his right ear – a myringoplasty, which is to repair a really tiny perforation in the eardrum that wouldn’t quite heal,” she said.

“That resulted in him having a mild loss in the low frequencies.”

Ms Kopke-Bennett said her son explored wearing a hearing aid for a time in school but eventually opted not to wear it because “his other ear is perfectly functional”.

Rebecca Kopke-Bennett on World Audiology Day.

She said it was quite common for people with varying levels of hearing loss to find alternative management routes.

Ms Kopke-Bennet said she had been amazed by the skills patients learn since starting work at NT Hearing.

“In audiology, there’s a really strong ethos within the profession of working alongside people who have experienced hearing loss – the clinician doesn’t tell people what to do, they listen,” the graduate audiologist said.

“Hearing loss is literally a silent disability because the only people who know how much it affects them are people with hearing loss.

“People do all sorts of amazing things to cope.”

Ms Kopke-Bennett said she hoped this year’s World Audiology Day would serve as a reminder of why interdepartmental support for issues such as hearing loss was so important.

For example, she hoped to see NT Health, Education and Training, and Territory Families collaborate to ensure Territorians were instructed on the causes, treatment, and prevention of hearing loss.

Ms Kopke-Bennett said lessons in prevention were particularly relevant to children who have been growing up in increasingly noisy environments.

“Don’t take your hearing for granted, because once it’s gone, it’s lost forever,” she said.

“Put little ear muffs on small children when they’re out at music festivals or seeing fireworks.

“Remind your kids – if they’ve got earbuds in and you can hear their music, it’s probably damaging their hearing.”