Project summary
Revolutionary solution to screen children’s hearing.
What is the issue?
Statistics from Australian Hearing show that the second, third and fourth most common ages for children to be fitted with hearing aids are six, seven and eight years of age. Their hearing issues are being detected when they experience learning and social difficulties at school. The need to identify these children before or during their first year of school, to ensure they are not disadvantaged by two, three or more years of not coping, has been a major driver throughout the project’s development phase.
What does the technology aim to do?
cmee4 productions is a content creation company focused on harnessing the power of mobile games to help address global health issues.
With over twenty-five years experience in medical and corporate content production cmee4 Productions Founder, Carolyn Mee, has applied her knowledge of creative engagement to the increasingly powerful medium of games with the belief that games can deliver and capture vital health information.
The company’s flagship project, Sound Scouts, offers a revolutionary solution to screen children’s hearing. Developed in collaboration with the National Acoustic Laboratories, led by Dr Harvey Dillon, Sound Scouts looks and feels like a game however it incorporates advanced scientific principles that enable it to detect and identify a range of hearing issues.
Sound Scouts’ release meets the need in the hearing healthcare system for a low-cost, easily administered, reliable test of hearing that can be widely accessed. The game is played on a mobile tablet utilising headphones. Parents/caregivers input some details including their child’s age, as results are age dependent, and oversee their children playing, but otherwise the game is completely self-contained.
The game comprises three interleaved tests of hearing; two based on perceiving speech (one in noise and one in quiet), and one based on perceiving tones against a noise background. Each of these constantly adapts so that the child is always listening at the edge of his or her hearing capability. Algorithms within the game check that the child is responding reliably, as well as measuring the child’s actual ability. The results from the three tests are combined to automatically display a test result as soon as the game is completed.
Sound Scouts was recently presented at the International Collegium for Rehabilitative Audiology in San Francisco attracting international development partners.
The Medical Devices Fund grant will help Sound Scouts hearing screening solution to become a routine part of every Australian child’s preschool or kindergarten health check.
Company contact
Carolyn Mee, Founder
carolyn@cmee4.com.au
www.soundscouts.com.au
+61 414 400 114