The Queensland Chapter Conference & Workshops will be held at voco Brisbane City Centre in Brisbane on Friday 24 & Saturday 25 February 2023. Please see below for the Queensland Conference Day Program and the Workshop Day Program.
Queensland Conference Program
The Queensland Conference Day will be held on Friday 24 February 2023. All times are in AEST time (QLD time).
6 CPD Points (Category 1.1)
| Time (AEST) | Details | Speaker/s |
| 0815 - 0845 | Arrival & Sign In | |
| 0845 - 0900 | Welcome and Introduction | Rachel Gibson (Audiology Australia Chapter Chair) |
| 0900 - 1000 | New Learnings about stigma experiences of adults with hearing loss and their families Stigma has long been implicated as a reason why adults with hearing loss take an average of 7 to 10 years to seek help and why outcomes of hearing device fitting are less than optimal. The team at University of Queensland has been conducting a program of research to systematically investigate how stigma is experienced by adults with hearing loss and their families, how they manage it in everyday life, and how these experiences relate to outcomes. The findings are new to the field and include greater stigma for hearing loss than hearing aids and management strategies of ‘not telling’ others. | Louise Hickson (University of Queensland) |
| 1000 - 1030 | Morning Tea | |
| 1030 - 1130 | The rationale and resources for aural rehabilitation programs for adults and children This session will explore the latest research on the rationale for aural rehabilitation and provide a detailed overview of a comprehensive range of interactive tools available to support both adults and children on their hearing journey. | Rebecca Claridge (Med-El) |
| 1130 - 1200 | Early experience with the Osia Bone Conduction Implant system in a private clinic OSIA is the most recent bone conduction device available in Australia for hard of hearing people who cannot wear conventional hearing aids for medical reasons. In this presentation, the indications for using this implant, the clinical experience and patients' outcomes and feedback will be shared. | Jay Lee (Attune Hearing) |
| 1200 - 1230 | Solution Suites | |
| 1230 - 1330 | Lunch | |
| 1330 - 1400 | From the lab to the clinic: using fNIRS to accelerate early intervention for infants with hearing loss Researchers in the EarGenie project at the Bionics Institute are using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to measure hearing in sleeping infants with the goal to develop a clinical device for use in audiology clinics. This presentation will review the essentials of fNIRS and its application in hearing research and present our current findings for measurement of speech sound detection and discrimination measured in normal hearing and hearing- impaired babies. | Julia Wunderlich |
| 1400 - 1500 | Advances
in the treatment of chronic middle ear infection in indigenous children Australian children of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ancestry are burdened by a particularly severe form of otitis media (OM); having one of the highest rates OM in the world. Even with today’s medical advances, it is common for young children with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ancestry to endure many ear infections. These relentless infections often rupture the tympanic membrane, leaving many of the children to start school with significant hearing loss. It has been shown previously that Aboriginal infants are colonized in the nasopharynx with bacterial pathogens associated with ear infections within weeks of life and that this colonisation predicts the onset of OM. The objective of our study was to further examine the bacterial microbiome in the nasopharynx in relation to OM status in Indigenous Australian children. A total of 103 children were recruited from two northern Australian (Queensland) communities. Clinical histories along with data from clinical examinations and nasal swab samples were collected. The nasopharynx microbiome differed significantly in relation to OM status. In the laboratory, bacterial strains taken from children with good ear health were found to inhibit the growth of bacterial pathogens known to be associated with ear infections. | Diane Maresco-Pennisi (University of Queensland) |
| 1500 - 1530 | Afternoon Tea | |
| 1530 - 1630 | Listening and listening difficulties Recent attempts to better understand how the brain processes sound have seen researchers reconsider auditory processing (AP) and auditory processing disorder (APD) through the broader lenses of listening and listening difficulties (LD). This presentation will review this new research and its goals of developing new tests and protocols that could allow audiologists to differentially diagnose and manage a wider range patient-reported listening difficulties including those originating from audition, language and/or cognition. | Wayne Wilson (University of Queensland) |
| 1630 - 1700 | What I wish I knew when I started out as a professional audiologist | Greer McDonald (Hear and Say) |
Queensland Workshop Program
The Queensland Workshop Day will be held on Saturday 25 February 2023. All times are in AEST time (QLD time).
3 CPD Points per Workshop (Category 2.2)
| Time (AEST) | Details | Speaker/s |
| 0815 - 0845 | Workshop A Arrival & Sign In | |
| 0900 - 1045 | Workshop A: Cochlear implants in a community setting This workshop aims to provide insight into cochlear implant services in a community clinic. You will be exposed to elements of a routine review appointment with a cochlear implant recipient, including mapping, basic troubleshooting, and aided speech testing. You will be asked to consider the psychosocial aspects of one of the recipients you meet, and make suggestions for a holistic rehabilitation program, including communication counselling, ALDs, support groups and other rehabilitation resources. | Karen Pedley, Jay Lee, Karen Lovelock (Attune Hearing) |
| 1045 - 1115 | Morning Tea | |
| 1115 - 1230 | Workshop A: Cochlear implants in a community setting (continued) | |
| 1230 - 1330 | Lunch | |
| 1230 - 1330 | Workshop B Arrival & Sign In | |
| 1330 - 1530 | Workshop B: Back to the basics of ABR audiometry This workshop will explore the core electrophysiological principles underpinning the ABR including what is it; how is it generated; how is it recorded; what are its defining characteristics; and how is it affected by stimulus, recording and patient factors. The aim is not to tell participants how to perform an ABR assessment. Instead, the aim is to revisit why we perform the ABR the way we do when assessing children and adults. | Wayne Wilson (University of Queensland) |
| 1530 - 1600 | Afternoon Tea | |
| 1600 - 1700 | Workshop B: Back to the basics of ABR audiometry (continued) |
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