1. Title of the Practice: “Community Oriented Screening Camps”

Objectives of the Practice: The primary aim is to provide comprehensive screening and intervention services for communication disorders among children attending Ashrama schools in the Mysuru district. The intended outcomes include early identification of communication disorders, provision of necessary medical and therapeutic interventions, and ensuring access to appropriate educational resources. The underlying principles of this practice involve early intervention, multidisciplinary collaboration, and equity in healthcare access for marginalized communities.

The Context: The practice addresses the pressing need for addressing communication disorders among children in tribal communities, who often face barriers to accessing healthcare services. The program overcomes logistical challenges and ensures maximum participation by conducting screening camps directly within the schools. Additionally, the collaboration between AIISH and the Tribal Research Institute underscores the importance of partnerships in addressing healthcare disparities in underserved populations.

The Practice: A team of professionals, including ENT specialists, audiologists, speech-language pathologists, psychologists, and special educators, conduct comprehensive screenings within Ashrama schools. Children identified with communication disorders receive free medical treatment and therapeutic interventions on-site. Those requiring further evaluation are referred to AIISH for detailed assessments, including the provision of free hearing aids. The uniqueness of this practice lies in its proactive approach to addressing communication disorders in a marginalized population, leveraging existing school infrastructure to maximize outreach. Constraints may include limited resources for follow-up interventions and challenges in sustaining long-term support.

Evidence of Success: The program's success is evidenced by screening 1323 children across 15 Ashrama schools, exceeding initial targets. Follow-up at AIISH was done for 96 children. Performance against benchmarks indicates high rates of identification and intervention for communication disorders, leading to improved outcomes for participating children. Review results demonstrate a significant prevalence of communication disorders and highlight the need for early intervention initiatives.

Problems Encountered and Resources Required: Challenges encountered included logistical hurdles in organizing screening camps, limited availability of specialized professionals, and the need for sustained funding to ensure continued service provision. Adequate resources, including personnel, equipment, and funding, are essential for this practice's successful implementation and scalability. Continued collaboration between AIISH, the Tribal Research Institute, and other stakeholders is crucial for addressing these challenges and ensuring the program's sustainability.

2. Title of Practice: AIISH Vaani

Objectives of the Practice:

The main intention of this practice is to create awareness among the general public on various communication disorders and to throw light on prevention and early identification of communication disorders. This will help in connecting the stake holders with the Speech Language Pathologists and Audiologists. Another important objective is to orient the public on the institutional activities and the courses offered. As the course on Speech and Hearing is relatively less known, it will help in more student population to take up this course and provide services in rural areas also.

The Context:

As this is relatively a new area of profession in the society, the content of presentation needs to be simple. Hence during orientation and institute visit, the information needs to be simplified and imparted in Layman’s terms.

The Practice:

Public lecture is not restricted to any particular population. College students of various disciplines like social work, psychology, physiotherapists have come for orientation. Irrespective of the profession, any organization which requests for institute visit is obliged and a date and time is fixed as per their convenience. Sometimes more detailed orientations are done specific to the areas sought such as genetics, psychology, special education etc.  For conducting the orientation, work orders are placed for the hall, audio visual arrangements and photography. A request is sent to the concerned departments for deputing the resource persons when specific detailed talks are requested.  As a routine staff of POCD/C-PECD delivers the orientation talk

Evidence of success:

A google form based pre-post feedback on questions based on the orientation will be obtained from all participants. Based on the analysis of the feedback, it is noticed that there is significant improvement in the awareness among the public regarding the different causes of communication disorders and also regarding preventive care for the same. On an average minimum of 4 to 5 groups of visitors are oriented in a month (approximately 200 participants).

Problems encountered and resources required:

In some instances, the target group is unable to come on the stipulated date due to logistic concerns, causing inconvenience to the resource persons. Many times, the target groups do not report at the specified time. Hence the orientation gets delayed and has to be briefed up. One of the programs, i.e., orientation or institute visit gets compromised. Also, visitor number beyond 50 cannot be managed easily especially coordinating institute visit across different departments/ clinics. Members of the Public lecture series committee belong to different departments, currently with 2 faculty, 1 MSW and 1 PRO. They may have classes/clinical postings during the time allocated for the orientation. Hence they need to make alternate arrangements in their concerned departments, to conduct the orientation.

However, at present, a new staff (Audiologist & SLP Gr 11) has been posted at C-PECD and she is carrying out the orientation programs for the visitors.