KARACHI, Aug 27: Children with hearing loss or impairment pay a heavy social cost, said speakers at a seminar held by a private medical institution on Friday.

The biggest problem encountered by them was their inability to speak. Because of their problem, which was often congenital, they lagged behind in academic areas.

As a consequence, they found difficulties in getting good jobs, which in turn kept them immersed in financial problems. The speakers said that moderate or mild hearing impairment could be dealt with the use of hearing aids. However, in case the impairment was of a severe kind, hearing aids proved useless.

In this area, only Cochlear implants were useful. However, this was also a costly affair. The event, "Cochlear implants - treatment for deafness", organized by the Ziauddin Medical University, was kicked-off with a presentation by Prof Lokman Saim of the Kebangsaan University, Malaysia.

He described in detail how Cochlear implants could stimulate the sensory-neural system, paving way for hearing in a patient, and the subsequent acquisition of the ability to speak following prolonged speech therapy.

He said every person who suffered from hearing impairment, and who was provided an implant, eventually had one disadvantage compared to other children which was in the shape of delayed speech therapy.

Prof Saim was of the view that Cochlear implantation was a major breakthrough, since persons suffering from severe hearing loss could start hearing.

Prof Abbas Zafar of the Ziauddin Medical University said the Cochlear implant programme had been established in his institution, and care had been taken to ensure that the two major parts of the programme, namely implantation procedure and speech therapy, were adequately handled.

Dr Khalid Mahida talked about the drastic effects of deafness on a person's life and spoke at length about the indications of Cochlear Implant. He also talked of contra-indications.

Amna Siddiqui said that Cochlear implant was a miracle but it was not magic. She added that there were only three qualified speech therapists in the country. She also announced that a programme would be launched soon by the Ziauddin University under which speech and language therapy would be taught.

The Vice-Chancellor of the University, Shahid Aziz Siddiqui, said the language and speech therapy course would be a degree-level one. The said programme, he said, would produce a number of speech and language therapists, who would be serving affected people.

He pointed out that up to 14 per cent of the Pakistani population, totalling about 20 million adults and children, suffered from language and speech deficiency.

Meanwhile, PPI adds that Prof Dr Lokman Bin Saim elaborating on Cochlear implants said: "The children with this defect have a problem of malfunctioning inner ear technically called cochlea and cochlear implant is actually an electronic device, which is surgically implanted in inner ear, which takes over the function of non-working cochlea," he said.

He also explained different surgical techniques involved in implantation process, adding the surgery was simple but tedious and meticulous.. Prof Abbas Zafar of Ziauddin Medical University said the cochlear implant programme had been established on strong footings at their hospital, citing a case when a deaf child's hearing had been restored the same day.

Dr Abid Saeed, audiologist informed about new features in implant system. Shahid Aziz, Vice-Chancellor of ZMU announcing a university degree programme in speech language therapy in January 2005 said: " This programme will be the very first of its kind in Pakistan."

Mentioning that the facility for Cochlear implants was available at the institution, he said, the cost was approximately $16,000, which made unaffordable for the large majority.

Amna Siddiqui, one of the three qualified and well-trained speech-cum-language therapist, while reminding that hearing loss does not effect the intellectual capacities of the concerned individuals, stressed that the suffix "dumb" must not be used with the term deaf as it held a negative tone.