Witkoppen School pupils receive free hearing screening
FOURWAYS - Registered just in time for Deaf Awareness month, The Kudo Foundation together with eMoyo, a telemedicine company, kicked off the month by providing free hearing screenings at Witkoppen Primary School on 1 September.
Founder of the foundation and designer of the new groundbreaking KUDOwave, a unique mobile audiometer, Dr Kirk Koekoermoer said the foundation was started after seeing a gap in the market.
According to Koekoermoer, the Integrated School Health Policy (ISHP) states that each school-aged child should have their hearing screened six times throughout their school career, “This is not happening, and only a small number of children actually get tested. We realised that someone had to do it.
“There are approximately 11 million school children in the country and more than 25 000 schools. There are only a limited number of government audiologists available, making this an almost impossible task for government to achieve,” he said.
According to Koekoermoer, approximately 19 percent of school-aged children have some degree of hearing loss leading to, but not limited to, side effects such as speech and pronunciation difficulties and delays, language development delays, poor verbal memory and attention, learning and concentration difficulties and social rejection.
“ The Kudo Foundation, aims to tackle these problems.”
According to Koekoermoer, the KUDUwave makes it possible to screen a large number of children at once, as they are portable.
Approximately 200 Grade 1 to 3 pupils from Witkoppen Primary School were tested on the day, with free diagnostic testing provided to those needing it onsite.
Principal of Witkoppen School, Sam Makama said, “I think it’s a brilliant initiative. Loss of hearing disables a child and their ability to learn. The earlier a disability is detected the better it is for the child.”
Details: www.emoyo.co.za dirk@emoyo.net
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