Aboriginal artist Lara Went (main picture) brought her gifted Burrumering guardian spirit to life last month, creating three huge murals at the Sport and Aquatic Centre. She also visited children at Banksia, Gumnut and Waratah Cottages, guiding them through some art-making activities.

Two Indigenous Macquarie students, Dylan Barnes and Elijah Ingram – both respected artists themselves – collaborated with Lara to create a large Burrumering guardian spirit in the Sport and Aquatic Centre courtyard.

Inclusive science, for the win

During the October school  holidays the Australian Hearing Hub hosted another successful Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Junior Science Camp, in collaboration with the Junior Science Academy.

An example of a ‘gold standard’ for education accessibility, the camp provides a free, fun science experience for children with hearing challenges, encouraging their further engagement with STEM and aspiration towards tertiary education.  Families travel from all over New South Wales to attend, giving the children an invaluable chance to connect with peers.

The camps also give Master of Clinical Audiology students an opportunity to engage with the children and put their knowledge into practice.

Best water views in town almost ready to hit the market

Macquarie’s new on-campus accommodation in the Central Courtyard Precinct is almost complete, ready to house students at the start of 2021.

“While most staff had to take a break from campus earlier this year, we were hard at work building a new home for students at the heart of the University,” says Director of Property Mark Broomfield. “We’re excited to see the project edge closer to the final completion milestone and are looking forward to the final fit out and opening early next year.”

No international travel? No problem

International travel may be off the cards, but it didn’t stop 70 students from German Studies, Languages and Cultures and the Global Leadership Program getting an exclusive tour of a section of the Berlin Wall last month.

Ms Sonja Griegoschewski, Director of the Goethe-Institut, gave the students a virtual tour of a slab from the original wall that is on display at the organisation’s Woollahra headquarters, and shared her personal insights of life in Berlin before and after the fall of the wall.  Deputy Consul General Mr Klaus Steitz also gave the students a valuable ‘insiders’ look’ at the functions and priorities of the Council of the European Union, which is currently presided over by Germany.

The event was moderated by Associate Professor Ulrike Garde and organised in collaboration with the Global Leadership Program and the Bachelor of International Studies.

The Australian Hearing Hub – a pioneering collection of Australia’s leading hearing organisations – has been a distinctive sight on University Avenue since its opening in 2013.  Seven years on, we celebrate World Hearing Day on 3 March by stepping inside the Hub to see how co-location has turned into powerful and unified alliance improving the lives of people with hearing and language disorders around the world.

Our guide is Professor David McAlpine, ARC Laureate Fellow in the Department of Linguistics and the Hub’s Director of Hearing Research.

You arrived at Macquarie in 2015, not too long after the opening of the Hearing Hub. How have you seen the Hub evolve? 

There’s been a real maturing of how the partners see each other, and how we’re working together to change the dialogue on hearing health – it’s moved well beyond being just a common building with disparate organisations, to a real synergy.

And we shouldn’t underestimate Macquarie’s role in driving that synergy. For example, The Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children (RIDBC) and Sydney Cochlear Implant Centre (an RIDBC service) are now an integral part of Macquarie University – their education programs now run through us and they’re bringing their whole operation over from North Rocks to Macquarie campus.

How is this strengthening of partnerships helping us in our mission to transform hearing health?

Well, government investment in research is increasingly tied to impact and engagement, and no other university can boast our portfolio of partners. So, it means we can make a really strong case for investment in hearing, and we’ve been able to secure some important grants – like Professor Katherine Demuth’s grant last year to understand communication challenges of children with hearing loss, which we’re doing in collaboration with Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children, The Shepherd Centre, Hearing Australia, Cochlear Limited and Parents of Deaf Children.

How have the discoveries coming out of the Hearing Hub changed how hearing loss is treated in Australia?

When it comes to hearing loss in children, we’ve moved significantly to early intervention and rehabilitation. All our partners are now heavily involved in early identification, implementation, rehabilitation, hearing technologies – all before the age of six months.

Quite a few of the Hub partners have been collaborating on the LOCHI study, which shows that language abilities are strongly correlated with how early intervention occurred. We had a fantastic one-off chance to look at this when newborn hearing screening programs began rolling out at different times, in different Australian states. We had all these cohorts of the same age group, receiving intervention at different times.

Our research coming out of the LOCHI study seems to strongly indicate that the age at which you got a hearing aid or a cochlear implant strongly influences your future language abilities and reading abilities; and probably your educational outcome and attainment.

What about the other end of the spectrum – dealing with hearing loss in an ageing population?

Ageing populations are living longer with hearing loss that’s irreversible. It’s our single biggest sensory deficit, so it means we’re going to have to change the story. We have to move away from hearing impairment in its traditional sense of not being able to hear quiet sounds in quiet rooms, to a more functional definition – asking ourselves what hearing loss means to our day-to-day life.

It’s something that most countries don’t seem be prepared for, or willing to tackle. Professor Cath McMahon is carrying out an interesting study, together with international partners, looking at the different models for hearing healthcare around the world.  None of them are solving the adult hearing loss issue, or the mild to moderate hearing impairment issues.

The stigma around hearing loss – especially around wearing hearing aids, which are associated with looking old – stops many people from investigating their hearing health. And of course, those who do actually get hearing aids often end up chucking them in a drawer.  Because hearing aids don’t actually solve the problem.

We can solve the audibility problem by cranking up the sound, but it doesn’t make it any clearer to hear. Because you hear with your ears, but you listen with your brain. What’s feeding through from our ears to our brains is actually the issue we have to address.

So, the Hub is about brains as much as ears?

Definitely, and it’s one of the reasons why this building – with all these partners and departments working together – is making such a big impact. We’ve got colleagues from Cognitive Science, for example, helping us use infrared spectography – shining light into the head from outside – to measure the brain’s response to sound.  One of our PhD students, Amanda Fullerton, is using this technology with cochlear implant users, who we can’t use MRIs with.

And we’ve just started a world-first clinical trial to use gene therapy to augment cochlear implants – stimulating neurons to push them closer to the electrodes that will give the user better resolution.  It’s super cool stuff.

The Lighthouse marking Hearing Awareness Week with stories exploring our University’s impact on hearing health:

• Tuning out: Why do so many people switch off their hearing aids?
• Five things you can do to protect your hearing at any age
• There’s an app for that: the new ‘hearables’ changing the way we listen
• Global hearing report puts the focus on social inclusion
• Shouting to be heard: How noisy, everyday places harm our hearing
• Camp gives deaf children a rare opportunity to be together

A collaborative effort between Macquarie, Cochlear Limited, the Australian Hearing Hub, staff in the Junior Science Academy, and Parents of Deaf Children, the two-day camp was designed specifically for DHH students, using assistive listening devices, closed captions and text handouts to help the students grasp topics like flight, gravity and mechanics.

Class sizes were capped at 12 children to minimise the noise impact, and camp educators and coordinators underwent deaf awareness training in preparation for the event.

The camp was initiated by Macquarie PHD candidate Chi Yhun Lo, after a similar camp – the Veronica James Science Challenge – was discontinued a few years ago.

“That camp had a huge impact on many of my DHH friends, and when I found out it had ceased, it was a no-brainer to initiate our own program,” Chi says.

“DHH children are often the only child in their school with a hearing loss, and research shows this can contribute to poorer psychosocial outcomes and feelings of isolation for them,” he adds. “By delivering STEM through accessible communication, we can give them a much more inclusive educational experience.”

The camp was a big hit with both the students and their parents, with one parent remarking that it was great for their child to be able to enjoy a camp with peers and adults who ‘got it’ about deafness.

More than 100 researchers and big thinkers from across the University gathered in one room on Friday 10 August to spark ideas and generate global solutions for hearing health care.

The Hearing Festival of Ideas – based on the successful 2013 Festival of Ideas event format that helped shape the University’s current Research Framework – was designed to harness the power of Macquarie’s interdisciplinary thinking, with staff working in cross-departmental teams to brainstorm solutions for hearing loss, prevention and care.

Key industry partners were welcomed to the afternoon session to hear the innovative ideas, with participants then invited to ‘fund’ ideas with mock dollars (distributed, naturally, by the University’s Chief Financial Officer Robin Payne). Several of the ideas were identified as having commercial potential.

Director of Hearing Research, Professor David McAlpine said it was exciting to witness so many great minds working together to improve the lives of the one-in-six Australians that suffer from hearing loss.

“The Australian Hearing Hub is already a world leader in hearing research,” he said. “By collaborating with our colleagues across the University today, we can achieve even greater things.”

The day started with an icebreaker activity whereby participants created a Lego model that represented what they could bring to the discussion.

Professor Sakkie Pretorius, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research, says the event was a fantastic demonstration of what can be achieved when the collective brain power of Macquarie people is harnessed.

“The passion and engagement of everyone in the room led to some truly inspirational ideas,” he says. “The event has started an exciting conversation and direction for Macquarie’s hearing strategy.”

Those headphones. The ones you’ve had plugged into your ears on your morning commute, or on your weekend jog. Ever stopped to wonder what they might be doing to your hearing?

A new study, led by experts at National Acoustic Laboratories within Macquarie University’s Australian Hearing Hub, has revealed how many Australians think they’re damaging their hearing by using personal listening devices (PLDs) like smartphones and MP3 players.

“We found that 41 per cent of participants reported feeling they have a hearing loss, with 20 per cent reporting difficulties with speech in noise,” says the study’s lead author Dr Megan Gilliver.

“High-risk users, who listened at high volumes for long durations, were more likely to report hearing difficulties, particularly in relation to speech and conversation,” she adds.

Fifteen to 19 year olds were particularly at risk of hearing loss because of the amount of time they reported using PLDs –  around 88 hours a month (or almost three hours a day), compared to an average 47 hours a month reported by those over 50.

Interestingly, the researchers found that very few of us are making use of noise-cancelling technology, which can reduce the need to set PLDs to high volumes. Only 7.5 per cent of listening time in the study was undertaken with noise-cancelling devices, with more than a quarter of participants simply using the headphones or earbuds that came with their PLD.

Dr Gilliver says there are three simple ways to prevent hearing loss when using personal listening devices:

• keep the volume under 80 per cent of full volume
• limit your listening time to 1.5 hours a day
• invest in some quality noise-cancelling headphones so you don’t have to set your volume to high levels to drown out background noise

Visit the Hearing Awareness Week site to find out how you can take control of your hearing health.

What does noise do to our hearing?

Noise is the number one cause of hearing loss, yet it is preventable. According to a 2010 Access Economics Report, noise accounts for approximately 37 per cent of hearing loss cases in Australia. The World Health Organisation has suggested that 1.1 billion people globally are at risk of noise induced hearing loss resulting from recreational listening.

What should people be aware of in the workplace in regards to excessive noise?

While excessive noise can cause hearing loss, moderate levels which may not be damaging to hearing can increase stress, decrease motivation and therefore reduce workplace productivity. Open plan offices, while an innovative design, need to be acoustically well considered to maximise productivity. It’s important to remember that speech is time varying, has unpredictable changes in level and in informational content. Therefore, speech from an adjacent cubicle can be considered annoying if it is distracting others from working, which is not simply a matter of the level of an individual’s voice. Noise is a subjective parameter, therefore it is an individual’s reaction to sound which should be evaluated to determine its effects on distractibility, stress and productivity.

What happens to people physiologically when they’re exposed to excessively loud noises in the workplace?

Stress increases cortisol levels which can affect our weight, increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, depression and lead to lower life expectancy. Noise can also reduce our ability to sleep, and due to the need for increased attention to what we are doing – listening to someone speak, reading or writing – we are generally more fatigued by the end of the day. Of course, this can also cause increased effort when thinking, as well as frustration and anxiety.

What practical steps can people take to reduce physical and emotional stress caused by loud noise?

Noise and stress are cumulative – everyone needs a break from noise. So taking a lunch break or going for a walk during the day is a great strategy and is good for your physical and mental health. Noise-cancelling headphones may help to some extent, however, these are designed to reduce the levels of noise, which has a different spectral quality than speech.

To learn more about hearing loss and the hearing clinics on campus, or to test your hearing online, please visit this page.

For further information on Hearing Awareness Week and advice on how to better protect your hearing, please visit this page.  There is also an array of hearing clinics on campus, an online hearing test and noise risk calculator available, as well as free hearing checks offered during Hearing Awareness Week at convenient community locations.

The Federal Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science Greg Hunt MP and Federal Member for Bennelong John Alexander OAM MP took time out of their busy schedules recently to visit the Australian Hearing Hub and the parts of the Macquarie Park Innovation District (MPID).

The parliamentary members spoke to Professor Dowton and other members of the University’s executive team and academic staff, as well as MPID members. The discussion was far ranging and focused on the importance of industry collaboration, recognising the unique role that MPID can play in connecting business, academia, students and the broader community.

The anechoic chamber, located within Macquarie University’s Australian Hearing Hub, was one of the showcased highlights, with our guests being suitably impressed with its functionality after partaking in an auditory demonstration of the facilities. They were also interested in the innovative use of telepractice technologies by the Sydney Cochlear Implant Centre and the services offered at The Shepherd Centre.

The visit lead to some insightful and interesting conversations, with Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Corporate Engagement and Advancement) Professor David Wilkinson commenting:

“This was a valuable and productive visit for the University, symbolising and bringing to life the importance of partnership between business, universities and government. Minister Hunt and the Member for Bennelong were both very engaged in the vision for MPID and the shared benefit industry collaboration brings. I look forward to working closely with the Government in the future to make sure our innovative ideas come to fruition.”

The visit ended with a roundtable discussion with members of the Macquarie Park Innovation District.

Last week, international experts and thought leaders from the audiology community visited Macquarie for the inaugural Cochlear Global Research Symposium to discuss the latest research and best clinical practices in implantable hearing solutions.

Many high profile guests were in attendance, with speakers at the symposium including the President and CEO of Cochlear Limited Chris Smith, Former Cochlear CEO Professor Chris Roberts, who is currently on the board of Innovation and Science Australia (ISA), and our own Vice-Chancellor Professor S Bruce Dowton, all of whom emphasised the importance of working collaboratively to achieve research and innovation solutions.

In his address at the opening session of the symposium, Professor Dowton discussed the importance of Macquarie’s relationship with Cochlear, our largest on-campus partner.

“We are currently preparing the next generation of researchers by working with our partners, and we count, very proudly, Cochlear as one of our major partners. The Australian Hearing Hub is a remarkable partnership between Macquarie University, Cochlear and a host of organisations from audiology and other disciplines. It is bringing people together into spaces where ideas can germinate,” he said.

The essential nature of universities working closely with research organisations moving forward was also raised by Professor Chris Roberts, whose opening address discussed how innovation will occur in the global markets of the future.

“We are going to need universities, non-for-profits and governments to come together in unprecedented ways as the only solution is to work collaboratively and globally. Places such as the Australian Hearing Hub are acting as a catalyst for global collaboration,” Chris said.

The University has placed precedence on growing the Macquarie-Cochlear collaboration by exploring new opportunities for the partnership, with October heralding the appointment of Dr Lisa Rodgers into a new role as Director of the Cochlear Macquarie University Partnership. Lisa says that she is looking forward to working collaboratively with Cochlear to achieve great things for both organisations.

“This is a partnership that will yield excellent collaborative research outcomes, and one that I am extremely proud to be involved with,” she commented.

Dr Teresa Ching from the Department of Linguistics and the National Acoustic Laboratories (NAL), tells us more.

Early fitting or cochlear implantation is key to spoken language development in infants with hearing loss. Whereas children with profound hearing loss undoubtedly benefit from cochlear implants and get them early, it is currently not possible to accurately predict whether individual children with lesser hearing loss using hearing aids may benefit more from cochlear implants until signs of language delay are observed around 1-2 years of age.

Using the HEARLab system, clinicians already measure brainwaves of infants in response to speech sounds to identify whether hearing aids fitted to them are effective in making speech sounds audible.

This new development will measure brainwaves to tell us if a three-month-old baby wearing hearing aids hears that ‘see’ is different from ‘Sue’, or that ‘Sue’ is different from ‘shoe’ or ‘zoo.’ The brain responses to sound changes will either confirm that hearing aids are the best option for the infant or indicate that the child may be better served by cochlear implants.

By assessing an infant’s early discrimination ability in this way, clinicians will be able to identify infants who need cochlear implants when they are only a few months old so that families can be provided with the information to guide their decision on the best strategy to maximise outcomes for their children.

This is precisely what the ACORD test module in the HEARLab system will deliver. The software module will be developed by the HEARing CRC’s team at NAL, led by Teck Loi, Bram Van Dun, Fabric Bardy and Adjunct Professor Harvey Dillon, supported in part by the Medical Devices Fund grant.  The research and validation of ACORD involves myself, Bram Van Dun and Cara Wong at NAL, Professor Katherine Demuth in the Department of Linguistics at Macquarie, and Associate Professor Gary Rance at Melbourne University, supported by an NHMRC grant.  Commercial implementation of new software modules in HEARLab is commercially managed by HEARworks, led by Professor Bob Cowan and Katarzyna D’Costa.

Four in 10 Australians with hearing loss have it because of noise exposure, making it the leading cause of hearing loss in this country.

This week is Hearing Awareness Week at Macquarie: a week intended to educate Australians about the dangers of hearing loss. One of the biggest reasons we are damaging our hearing is that noise exposure is cumulative over a lifetime, meaning all the loud gigs you attended and bars you may have frequented as a young adult have taken a toll on your hearing health. And every over-exposure event adds up – just like too much UV radiation or exposure to the sun. So while in the short term there may seem to be no serious problems, in the long term you may have issues.

“Most Australians are completely unaware of the hearing damage they may be experiencing in everyday life, let alone the importance of getting their hearing checked regularly. When you add in the costs to relationships, performance at work, and impacts to health, there is an urgent need for more Australians to know about the risks and have their hearing checked more often,” says Professor David McAlpine, Director of Hearing Research at Macquarie’s Australian Hearing Hub.

The problem, Professor McAlpine says, is the fact that many Australians are wasting precious time as their hearing slips away, when they could be getting it treated, particularly in cases of ‘hidden hearing loss,’ which can affect their physical, social and emotional wellbeing.

“We are now seeing people experiencing hearing problems well before their 50s, when they still have decades of work and family life ahead of them. We need to preserve our hearing for as long as possible over a longer and longer lifespan,” says Professor McAlpine.

Getting regular hearing checks, Professor McAlpine says, is a great way to ensure that any form of ‘hidden hearing loss’ is picked up as early as possible.

“So if you think you have some form of hearing loss, don’t wait. Make a booking and get your hearing checked at the MQ Speech and Hearing Clinic or the clinic at Australian Hearing both located within the Australian Hearing Hub on campus.”

Support hearing health care services and research

Member Organisations of the Australian Hearing Hub at Macquarie University have thrown their support behind a new campaign from The Deafness Forum of Australia which aims to make hearing a national health priority in Australia. The Break The Sound Barrier campaign aims to garner support for adequate investment in services for, and research into, hearing impairment, and also raise awareness through community education. The Deafness Forum’s long term goal is for state and the federal governments to agree to make hearing Australia’s 10th national health priority so that hearing loss is no longer a barrier preventing too many Australians from reaching their potential.