Vision and hearing problems are common among children and can act as a significant barrier to educational and social development. This webinar will consider the prevalence of vision and hearing problems and their potential impact on children’s development. Experts will discuss how these problems often go undetected, what we can do to help identify them, and how we can subsequently support these pupils in a school environment.

Who is this webinar for?
This webinar will be relevant to professionals working in primary or secondary settings, including senior leadership team members, the SENDCO and wider SEND team, and inclusion and pastoral/welfare leads.

The facts
• Vision problems are common among children, with some studies suggesting that as many as one in five have some form visual deficit (Li et al, 2016) with the potential to affect their educational development (including colour vision impairment).
• There have been “significant increases” (Holden et al, 2016) in short-sightedness (myopia) due in no small part to increasing in screentime – a problem that has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic (Zhang et al, 2022).
• These problems can lead to difficulties seeing in the distance (e.g. viewing the board) or when reading, which in turn can disadvantage a child in the school environment. In most cases, these problems, once discovered, can be corrected by spectacles or other form of intervention.
• Hearing loss in childhood is common and can affect almost one in five children and young people – with the majority developing problems during childhood. In fact, hearing loss is much more prevalent in 6 to 11-year-olds than most current estimates (Moore et al, 2020).
• Even minimal, mild, and moderate hearing loss can have an impact on cognitive and auditory skills and cause detrimental effects on speech, language, developmental and educational outcomes (Lieu et al, 2020; Moore et al, 2020).

The webinar

During the one-hour discussion, our expert panel, featuring clinicians and educators, will consider:

• The importance of vision and hearing in learning and behavioural development and the implications of even mild vision and hearing loss for educational and social development, including inclusion, pupil welfare, academic progress, and pastoral care.
• How prevalent these difficulties are and what form they can take – from mild problems to more severe cases – including how children’s vision and hearing can change over time.
• How the behaviour of children with undetected vision and/or hearing deficits can present as challenging in the school environment.
• The impact of Covid and increasing screentime on pupils’ speech and language development and myopia (short-sightedness).
• The implications for schools of patchy NHS screening provision (the NHS is supposed to screen all children of reception age, but provision varies, and screening doesn’t take into account wider issues such as colour-blindness).

Two of the experts on our panel – Professor David Thomson and Dr Sebastian Hendricks – have been involved with the development of Thomson Screening’s SchoolScreener, which is used by non-clinical NHS staff, and which has clocked up more than 1.2 million screenings in more than 5,000 schools. Its sister technology, SchoolScreener for Schools can be used by school support staff at key stages 2, 3 and 4. Prof Thomson and Dr Hendricks will discuss their “lessons learned” and advice for schools based on their experience in screening and supporting children’s learning and development.
The webinar will also feature advice and guidance from professionals working with hearing and visually impaired students in mainstream primary and secondary school settings.
We will leave time for audience comment and questions at the end of the webinar.

This webinar is being organised by SecEd, Headteacher Update and Children & Young People Now in partnership with Thomson Screening and its SchoolScreener for Schools service.

About Thomson Screening

City, University of London founded Thomson Screening in 2011 to build on the research of Professor David Thomson and develop software applications enabling schools and non-clinical NHS staff to check children for undetected eyesight and vision problems that maybe affecting their educational, social development and healthcare.

Holden et al: Global prevalence of myopia and high myopia and temporal trends from 2000 through 2050, Ophthalmology (123, 5), February 2016: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ophtha.2016.01.006
Li, Hoffman, Ward, Cohen & Rine: Epidemioilogy of dizziness and balance problems in the United States: A population-based study, The Journal of Pediatrics, April 2016: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022347615015127
Lieu, Kenna, Anne & Davidson: Hearing Loss in Children: A Review, JAMA, December 2020: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2773567
Moore, Zobay & Ferguson: Minimal and Mild Hearing Loss in Children: Association with Auditory Perception, Cognition, and Communication Problems, Ear Hear, July/August 2020: https://journals.lww.com/ear-hearing/abstract/2020/07000/minimal_and_mild_hearing_loss_in_children_.4.aspx
Zhang et al: Myopia incidence and lifestyle changes among school children during the COVID-19 pandemic: A population-based prospective study, British Journal of Ophthalmology, 2022: https://bjo.bmj.com/content/106/12/1772