MILAN (ITALPRESS) – Hearing is one of the fundamental senses for the proper development of children, especially in the early years of life: through the sounds newborns begin to perceive rhythms, voices and language, the basics of language and communication skills. According to the World Health Organization, around 34 million children under 15 years of age are suffering from a significant hearing loss, with values varying on different continents: in industrialized countries, 1.5 deaf children are born on a thousand new births, in developing countries these numbers grow up to ten times so much because of gestations at risk, use of drugs harmful to hearing during pregnancy and disease. “There is an abyssal difference between our children who are born deaf, then going to follow a certain iter, and the children of the south of the world who very often are born in villages where there is no hospital and consequently no screening is made: moreover, because of diseases that can contract in tender age, they too can become children who lack hearing. This follows the fact that they do not learn to speak: it is a very serious thing,” said Loredana Lechiancole Vergani, president of the association Listen and live, interviewed by Marco Klinger for Medicina Top, TV format of the news agency Italpress.
Speaking of screening in third world states is now almost a taboo: Lechiancole Vergani points out that “what we are trying to do, in countries where we have managed to help, is to try to bring the tools that allow to make screening, apply where possible hearing aids and do logopedia; the latter part is fundamental to give the word to these children and is a process that can last from two to three years.”.
The president of Listen and live then remembers the two people thanks to which the association was born and tells the activity in the countries where it is currently operational: “Luca Del Bo and Elena Migoni, son and mother, he biomedical engineer and she logoped. Having this type of know-how, they tried to help those who do not have such an opportunity: Elena is gone, but I try to emulate her as much as possible in sending this association forward. At this moment we are engaged in a school in Kenya: here we manage to make screening to 180 children arriving from all the neighboring villages, where however we have to go to take them because they live closed and isolated in huts; they do not feel and do not speak, this is a shame. We are also in Congo, in an ecclesiastical foyer where we support children remotely by sending hearing aids and instruments: in the last two years two their doctors have come to Italy and we have formed them. In Nicaragua instead we have a logopedist who had gone there to make an experience and decided to stay: today he carries on a center where we can do precisely neonatal screening”.
The goal, he continues, “is to create a great trust in everything that is the background of doctors, teachers or simple people who want to learn: we would like to be able to bring all our knowledge. Now we are about to leave for Kenya, then we come back and they go ahead: we will try to keep them up and help more and more children. In Italy, however, we want to make the children of secondary schools understand, above all, the importance of hearing: today noise pollution is devastating, beyond the devices that solve problems we must begin to arrive at the advanced age with the hearing preserved”.
Lechiancole Vergani concludes by tracing what to listen and live represents an absolute priority: “Arriving to make an even higher number of screenings, lowering the age of children involved more and more: the more time passes, the more difficult it becomes to give him the word. The biggest problem of hearing lies right here: an isolated child can also suffer abuse that is not able to denounce. One of the most beautiful things is when we get the movies of these children who are tested and see them smile, touch, raise their hands and open their eyes when they put their headphones: see such joy that comes from the heart fills mine.”.
– Photos from Top Medicine –
(ITALPRESS).
