SPEECH THERAPY ASSOCIATION

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27308, 26 March 1954, Page 6

SPEECH THERAPY ASSOCIATION

ANNUAL MEETING Because their disability might remain long undiscovered, the partially deaf might suffer serious social and educational retardation, said Miss E. M. Woods, when she addressed the annual meeting of the North Canterbury Speech Therapy Association last evening. She was speaking about the relationship of speech problems to defective hearing. Miss Woods is attached to the School for the Deaf at Sumner to train third-year specialists of the Teachers’ College. The modern hearing aid was invaluable in-increasing the efficiency of hearing which was not being stimulated, but it could not recreate parts of the nervous system which hi.d been destroyed, Miss Woods said. Besides these limitations, it should be appreciated that a person using a hearing aid, after being accustomed to one pattern of sounds, must become used to another and at the same time relate it to the speech seen on the lips. Discussing the relationship between Defects in speech and hearing, Miss Woods said Christchurch was fortunate I? having the speech clinics and the Schoo] for the Deaf, particularly as some staff in the former had knowledge of hearing problems, thus assisting the close liaison between the two services.

The following officers were elected: patron, Miss M. B. HoWard, MP • president, Mr C. F. Bilcliff; senior vicepresident, Mr V. M. Preston; secretary and treasurer, Mr V. R Pearson; committee, Mesdames E. Durie, J r’ Mcllroy, J. Barnes, N. Ness, ik Tibbetts, S. Lusk, G'_ H. Campbell, S A. Roberts, Messrs H. J. Hayes, C. S Bellow and C. Pearce.