INTERVENTIONS FOR IMPROVING OUTCOMES OF CHILDREN WHO ARE DEAF OR HARD OF HEARING
Professor Teresa Y C Ching
Professorial Fellow, NextSense Institute, Sydney;
Conjoint Professor, Macquarie University, Sydney;
Honorary Professor, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
RESEARCHER PROFILE
Filmed in Sydney | June 2025
About two to six per thousand children have a hearing loss that prevents them from achieving their full potential in life. They experience many more difficulties in cognitive, language and social development than their hearing peers. We know that early detection through newborn hearing screening is crucial, but less is known about how intervention can best be targeted to meet the needs of individual children and their families.
Professor Teresa Ching has led population-based studies that drive evidence-based practice in intervention for improving outcomes of children who are deaf or hard of hearing. Much of her research findings have been translated into practice and policy. However, many children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds remain vulnerable, requiring intervention tailored to their needs. Furthermore, many children have undetected, untreated hearing problems when they enter school, thereby reducing their educational attainment and social participation.
Teresa is a Conjoint Professor at NextSense Institute and Macquarie University, and an Honorary Professor at the University of Queensland in Australia. Her current research focuses on devising culturally sensitive practices in early detection and intervention to maximise children’s outcomes. Working with international colleagues, her current research is also directed towards developing global guidelines and recommendations for hearing screening beyond the newborn period, so that all children can benefit from early detection and intervention. The ultimate goal is to attain equity of care and outcomes for all children with hearing difficulties.
Source: Supplied
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Investigating the benefits of donor human milk for preterm infants
Together, SAHMRI and Lifeblood are leading a consortium to revolutionise the way human milk, and novel products made from human milk, are used as nutritional and medical interventions to improve health outcomes in vulnerable infants, but with potential application for a diverse range of medical indications.
Currently, babies who are born early preterm – before 32 weeks – are given donor milk when their own mother’s milk is not available or in short supply. Whether donor milk is beneficial for babies born just a few weeks early is unclear, as very little research has been undertaken with these babies.
The GIFT Trial will soon commence as an investigation between SAHMRI, the University of Adelaide, the Red Cross Lifeblood Milk Bank conducted at five sites across three states in Australia.
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Relationship between mental illness and mental wellbeing
Since 2015, Dr Matthew Iasiello has been working on the development and dissemination of mental wellbeing interventions across the Australian community at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI). His PhD research was designed specifically to strengthen the translational work conducted by SAHMRI, and to solve problems that represented gaps in the literature that were arising when delivering mental wellbeing interventions into the community. The impact and relevance of Dr Iasiello’s work has been demonstrated with invited presentations at international academic conferences, and multiple media stories with significant online engagements.
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Dr Paul Griffin
MATER HEALTH SERVICES, QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA
