Mathers Mojo: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Mathers Mojo: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 01 May 2012. Volume:679;Page:1799. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
MOJO MATHERS (Green) 
: 
 I rise to speak to the 2010-11 financial review of the Ministry of Education. I first would like to note that it is New Zealand Sign Language Week and I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the many teachers who will use this week to introduce New Zealand Sign Language into the classroom and thereby introduce our children to this beautiful visual language which is the third official language of New Zealand.  
We all know and are agreed upon the importance of investing in education for our children. We know that this means for children with a disability providing appropriate early intervention and adaptive technology so that they do not fall behind their peers. So I am very concerned that the Ministry of Education has changed its policy and is now choosing not to fund remote microphone hearing aids for children with the hearing impairment called auditory processing disorder unless they are also receiving special education support. What this means in practice is that these children have to have another recognised disability such as autism or to have developed a serious learning need. I consider this policy to be both unfair and illogical.  
Auditory processing disorder is a hearing impairment where children are unable to process and understand sound in the same way as others despite the fact that they may pass conventional hearing tests. It is linked to glue ear which is a condition linked to poor housing and poverty and it affects more boys than girls. It also is higher amongst Maori and Pacific Island children—the very children who are often falling behind in classroom situations. I consider the decision to cut funding to be unfair to the child with auditory processing disorder who will be struggling to understand and follow classroom instructions and is likely to be on the path of underachievement. It is unfair to parents who have to choose between watching their child fall behind in the classroom or paying privately for the remote microphone hearing aids themselves assuming that they have the ability to do so. It is unfair to teachers and other children in the classroom because children with remote processing disorder are unable to follow what is happening in the classroom to the same extent as their peers and will therefore often have behavioural problems causing disruption in the classroom. So I consider this decision to cut the funding to be wrong and short-sighted.  
It also makes it impossible for schools to meet their obligation to provide an appropriate learning environment for these children as they are required to do by the National Education Guidelines. Children with auditory processing disorder should not have to be failing the system before they receive the support and the technology that they are entitled to. So although I applaud the ministry for saying that it wants to focus on children who are underachieving it also needs to make sure that children with a disability are given the support they need before they are completely failing in the school system and that I hope will be addressed. Thank you.