An initiative launched
at Kangiqsualujjuaq’s school.
Christopher MacPherson, a special education teacher at Ulluriaq School, was going through his department files when he realized that some important information about his students’ hearing and vision was missing. Not about their size and shape, you silly goose! 🐣 Rather, missing answers to important questions concerning students visual and auditory perception:
- Did those students ever receive an eye exam?Do they need glasses?
- What about their hearing? Do any have hearing loss?
Sometimes documents get lost or aren’t successfully transferred from the CLSC to schools. There are lots of holes in our files and we need to clean them up. I said, it would be great if there was a way that we could screen everyone.
When the optometrist and audiologist arrive in a community — which usually happens twice a year — their time is very limited and they often can’t see all the students. On top of that, diagnostics are performed only on specific school years, inadvertently increasing the chance of some kids being missed.
The following screening tools are helpful in providing a basis for diagnosis, as they identify the hearing and vision threshold levels of an individual.
We’ve used these basic screening tools throughout the entire school. We were able to flag five students who needed glasses and 30 other students that had some form of hearing loss.
Astonished by these results, Christopher thought it would be important to share this information with other schools. A scenario in which special education teachers can perform quick and easy screening tests at the beginning of each school year would be ideal! This would make it possible to identify students who may have slipped through the cracks, thus making sure everyone is getting the service they need. Our conversation ended on: what if the school board were to invest in one screening tool kit per school?
It’s a great initiative. The better our collaboration with the healthcare system is, the better the interventions for our students will be.
According to Vikie, vision and hearing are the gateways to learning. This initiative would make it possible to remain proactive in helping students and finding out who might require a referral for a full diagnostic test battery with a professional.
Vikie and Christopher both reiterated numerous times that these tools are key to local screening, but emphasized that they aren’t a way of providing a complete and official diagnosis.
We could set up a short video on how to use a Visual Acuity Chart and an audio meter. Special education teachers could learn through it and perform vision and hearing screening on every student.
There is a certain procedure you have to follow to ensure that the screening is performed correctly. Other than having the audiometer calibrated each year, each tool is pretty straightforward.
Are you interested in learning more about this initiative?
Do you want to bring this initiative to your school? Email us! ✉