8-year-old Matthias to take centre stage in Canberra

The Power of Speech is back to challenge the perceptions of what children with hearing loss can achieve.

This year, it's taking place on Thursday 8 September at the Australian Parliament House in Canberra, and Auckland cochlear implant user Mattias Berndt is taking centre stage along with six other 7 and 8-year-old cochlear implant users from First Voice member organisations around Australia.

Matthias was diagnosed with sensorineural hearing loss in both ears as an infant, and received cochlear implants at age two.

He loves music and the performing arts, as well as taking part in sports and other extracurricular activities with hearing friends.

During the event, Mattias and the other children will present short speeches to key policymakers around this year’s theme, ‘Connections’, proving that deafness is not a barrier to human connections and how early intervention support and cochlear implants have been helping them reach their full potential.

These inspiring children will also share with politicians how they defy commonly held misconceptions about growing up with a hearing loss.

“It gives attendees the chance to hear first-hand the integral role that the services provided by the members of First Voice play in the lives of those with hearing loss,” says Jim Hungerford, Chair of First Voice.

A special message of encouragement from MP Priyanca Radhakrishnan

Meet our rehabilitationist, Bronwyn

Working alongside our audiologists and kaitautoko kiritaki - support navigator, Bronwyn is our amazing cochlear implant rehabilitationist helping adult cochlear implant users regain confidence in their communication.

Our approach to rehabilitation is holistic where a person's language and culture is valued.

Bronwyn is a speech and language therapist who is proficient in New Zealand Sign Language. ⁠

Her goal is to give our cochlear implant users the skills they need to have confidence communicating with the aid of their hearing technology.

Whether it be spoken or Sign, Bronwyn is here to support you on your hearing journey.

The Hearing House cochlear implant rehabilitationist Bronwyn Bailey

Beyond speech and listening therapy

Rehabilitation is being part of a person’s hearing journey, involved with them, their family, their interests and understanding why they wanted a CI, says Bronwyn.

"Often people who are hard of hearing feel quite isolated so we want them to reconnect and feel like they’re contributing to family and community and belonging again.

"I want to find out what they want to get back to doing, and what the barriers have been. It could be to reintegrate socially with family visits, returning to the workforce, going to bridge games or meeting friends at cafes again."

With this knowledge Bronwyn can help you set functional goals tailored to your individual needs.

What does rehabilitation look like?

1. Building confidence

Bronwyn begins by working with you to build your listening skills to a point where you feel comfortable using a the phone - "this takes a lot of practice."

2. Utilising technologies

Next she will identify what technologies are available to help you meet your specific goals.

"If it's returning to work, we’ll look at accessories like mini mics for meetings or better communication with background noise."

If your goal is to enjoy watching TV, she will guide you on the assisted technology available that streams sound directly to your implant.

3. Communication strategies

Finally, Bronwyn will help you do some training on strategies to support your communication.

"It might be advocating for yourself in terms of what you need from your workplace or your family. It could be using assisted technology, and knowing there’s a speech to text app that you can use at the doctors if you can’t hear them through the mask," she says.

"It’s not all about the listening, it’s all about effective communication strategies, when there's been a breakdown and how to repair that.

"That’s the difference between a young child who is learning to hear with a cochlear implant, and an adult who has already learned language - whether it be spoken or sign language - and how they can now use their cochlear implant to support them in their communication."

Bronwyn (right) with cochlear implant user Gordon Taylor and his support person Mary.

Seeing success

Rehabilitation is more than training your implant, ear and brain to interpret the new sound, it's about enjoying your new hearing.

"I love it when someone tells me they’re attending their first social events since their hearing got to the point that hearing aids don’t help anymore.

"For me, success is knowing that they feel confident to attend these sorts of events again or have returned to chairing their local bridge club or running a coffee group at their retirement village, where before it was easier to isolate because communication was too hard. It really is about quality of life.”

Rehabilitation: Listening exercises to support your hearing goals

During your rehabilitation sessions your clinician will work with you to identify your listening goals and develop an auditory training programme to help you reach them.

The programme may include listening practice (language and word discrimination training), communication strategies, learning how to modify your listening environment for better hearing access, and strategies to more effectively communicate with friends, family and in the community.

Your rehabilitationist can also give you tools to advocate for your hearing and communication needs, and let you know what assistive technology is available to support your listening in challenging environments.

You will also receive a tailored programme of listening exercises (auditory training) for you to complete at home to develop your listening skills.

Here are some exercises to support your listening goals:

Do 30 minutes of ACTIVE listening practice every day

This means really listening to speech (without lipreading but add it if you need a clue) or music and working out what has been said.

The key here is active listening, where you are paying attention to the words or music. Ideally you are also getting feedback about how much you understood, and listening again to confirm what you heard.

Don't expect to get 100% correct

You want to challenge yourself so if you are getting it all right it is too easy. Try and work at a level where 70-80% of it is easy and you get it right the first time. The other 20-30% you will need to have repeated or lip read to get it right.

Find listening training that works for you

We use a range of partner supported rehabilitation techniques and online resources and apps.

Traditional listening involves listening to a helper read out sentences or words and receiving feedback.

Listening to music is preferred by many adults by using YouTube, iTunes or Spotify applications (apps) on their mobile phones.

The internet also provides opportunities for self-listening. One tried and tested website we recommend is ESL News.

Mobile phone applications (apps) provide the additional benefit of helping adults return to phone use as well as supporting specific word listening exercises. Some apps our clients enjoy using are Hearing Success, Word Success, HEAROES, Hearing Training and Bring Back The Beat.

Word listening tasks will develop your ability to discriminate between small difference in speech sounds so you don't fall into the habit of filling the gaps in sentences, which many adults quickly develop.

Books such as Wired for Sound by Beverley Biderman (1998) might also help you understand how much you can achieve.

As one client says, it "made me feel very good... and reminded me repeatedly and irrefutably of my successes, large and small.”

We have a few copies of the book for loan. If you would like to borrow a copy please let us know.