Ď㽶ĘÓƵ’s School of Communication Sciences and Disorders (SCSD) are offering free hearing screenings to the public on Wednesday and Thursday.
The University says hearing health is important for adults and children, which is why they are conducting the screenings.
“We’re doing an endoscopy, it’s like a weird-looking pen (almost) and it goes into your ear so you can see the eardrum and just make sure that everything is normal and there’s no fluid behind the ear. And, then we do a tympanogram, so, that measures the reflexes of the ossicles – so the bones in your ear – and the eardrum as well,” explained Sapphire Davis, a speech-language pathology student.
“And afterwards, we do a hearing test, so you hear a few beeps at different volumes and at different frequencies and so you just tell us whether or not you can hear those, and that will tell us if you have any type of hearing loss or if your hearing is normal.ĚýĚý“
Each year the SCSD provides the two-day screenings, while also providing information about hearing, hearing loss, and ways to prevent hearing loss.
It is estimated that 350 to 400 people are able to get screened during the event and learn about their hearing health.
“The last few years especially I think we’ve had real growth in numbers, people who come. It depends year to year but we try to promote within the McGill community, we get students from the school of music who are really interested in checking out their hearing, for example, other members of the McGill community in the building, but we’ve really been trying to reach out further lately to the broader Montreal community,” said Lauren Tittley, the coordinator of clinical education for the SCSD.
The free hearing screenings are conducted by students in the speech-language pathology department, who are overseen by two audiologists.
The studentsĚýalso focus their energy on teaching preventive measures to avoid noise-induced hearing loss.
“We talk a lot about making sure when you are around loud noises, wearing the appropriate protection, so if you’re going to a concert maybe you want to consider wearing ear plugs, just making sure that you’re not listening to anything too loud, whether it’s like a videogame or your music. Just making sure to take care of your ears,” said Niamh McKenna, a speech-language pathology student.
According to audiologist and clinical educator overseeing the students, Maryse Robidoux-Leonard, about 25-30 per cent of those who come for a screening, leave knowing that they do in fact have hearing loss.
“The feedback usually is pretty positive, and people are happy that we are offering the service, because it’s free, it’s fast, it’s not a full hearing test, it’s really just a screening, but then if ever we feel like there might be some hearing loss, we are two audiologists here on site so we can provide recommendations, answer questions and then we can also direct them to go get a full hearing test if needed,” said Robidoux-Leonard.
Additionally, every year the SCSD attends two elementary schools where they also perform screenings and provide prevention activities to students.
Screenings will be conducted between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Nov. 20 and 21 at the SCSD (2001 McGill College Avenue, Montreal, QC, 8thĚý´Ú±ô´Ç´Ç°ů).
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