Bringing Pediatric Hearing Care and Person-Centered Care to Brazilian Audiology Conference

By Clint McLean

Team Ida recently brought our person-centered care expertise to the 34th Encontro Internacional de Audiologia (EIA) in Brazil. Our Associate Director, Ena Nielsen and Senior Audiologist, Cherilee Rutherford delivered presentations and workshops at the conference, which was held near the beautifully serene Iguazu Falls. The conference was put on by the Brazilian Academy of Audiology (ABA), the Brazilian Society of Speech-Language Pathology (SBF), and the American Speech-Language Hearing Association (ASHA). We joined the lineup this year to help advance pediatric hearing care and person-centered care in South America.

Cherilee expressed, “We were delighted to attend the 34th International Meeting of Audiology conference in Iguazu Falls. Not only were we blown away by the spectacular natural beauty, we were equally inspired by the Brazilian speech, language and hearing professionals’ commitment to person-centered care.”

In preparation for the event, our partner, the University of Sao Paulo - Bauru (FOB USP), worked tirelessly to translate many of the Ida counseling tools into Portuguese so that workshop participants could use the tools in their native language and clinicians could begin to include them in their practices immediately. The Portuguese tools are now available for free. Aproveite!

During the seminar, Pediatrics: Support for Children and Young People with Hearing Loss, Ena and Cherilee explained how pediatric hearing care professionals can support the development of children’s coping skills and strategies. Attendees were also introduced to the Ida Institute pediatric tools: My World, Transitions Management, and Telecare for Teens and Tweens.

During the Person-Centered Care (PCC) seminar, Ena and Cher shared ways that PCC can benefit hearing care clinics. The presentation offered concrete steps for participants to take, and resources they could use, to make their interactions with clients more person-centered. 

Deborah Ferrari, Professor of Audiology at FOB USP, joined Cher and Ena for the Person-Centered Care in Education workshop. She explains, “The six-hour workshop gathered faculty from 15 higher education institutions from across Brazil, to discuss strategies to better integrate person-centered care principles into the training of future speech-language pathology and audiology professionals.”

Ferrari, who has initiated an Ida chapter in Brazil, also shared with the educators how she’s teaching PCC and integrating it successfully into student curricula at the FOB USP.
The workshop also introduced participating educators to the University Course

Cherilee emphasized, “We very much look forward to continuing to support the important work our partners and hearing care professionals in Brazil are doing in education and to the translation and adaptation of more Ida tools and resources.”

The 35th edition of Encontro Internacional de Audiologia will be taking place next year in São Paulo. We hope to see you there!