The Shepherd Centre has officially signed a partnership to share its more than 50 years of expertise with Japan’s Shizuoka Prefecture Hospital.
The partnership aims to improve outcomes for Japanese children with hearing loss and cochlear implants.
Japanese children with hearing loss face significant challenges, including delayed diagnosis and limited access to specialised services. The Japan Hearing Vision initiative, launched in 2019, has made strides in newborn hearing screening and early cochlear implantation. However, there remains a lack of specialised services to teach children how to use their devices effectively across Japan.
In Australia, 94 per cent of children with hearing loss are diagnosed before three months of age. However, in Japan, it takes significantly more time to receive a diagnosis and intervention. For example, Australian children typically receive implants at six months old, compared to two years old in Japan.
Japanese children with significant hearing loss face other challenges too; they are educated separately to their hearing peers, which impacts their development and social integration.
“The Shepherd Centre team will provide training to Japanese clinicians in Shizuoka to build local knowledge and capability so they can support deaf children with cochlear implants use their devices effectively, and learn crucial listening and speaking skills,” said Dr Aleisha Davis, CEO of The Shepherd Centre.
This partnership will deliver a pilot early intervention program, which will start in April 2025. It’s the first publicly funded early intervention service for death children in Japan. Funding is being provided by Shizuoka Prefecture and Japanese governments, with additional support from the Australia-Japan Foundation (DFAT), totaling $6.5M.
“We believe that it is necessary for us to do everything in our power to ensure that these children have words and language throughout their lives and to open up various possibilities for them,” said House of Representatives member for Shizuoka, Yoko Kamikawa.