Profil clinique de la surdité de l'enfant à Yaoundé / Clinical profile of child deafness in Yaounde

In Cameroon, the prevalence of deafness in children is 3.6%. The aim of this study was to describe the clinical profile of these hearing impaired children at the time of diagnosis. Patients and methods.This was a descriptive cross-sectional study that took place between November 2020 and June 2021 and involved 127 hearing impaired children. Results.The mean age of these children was 9.2 ± 3.9 years, with extreme values of 1 and 15 years. The sex ratio was 1.3. The average number of children in the siblings was 3.5 ± 1.8 children and 30.7% occupied the 1st rank in their siblings. The average birth weight was 3269 ± 0.685g. The neonatal history was found in 11.81% of the cases while the postnatal history related to 32.28% of the cases. Maternal alcoholism and parental genital infections were found during pregnancy. Familial deafness was found in one of the mothers (0.4%) and in the siblings in 3.1% (n=4). At the time of diagnosis, the median age was between 0 and 24 months, the mode of onset was old and 96.9% of children had bilateral deafness. The absence of reaction to noise and the delay of language were the most found modes of revelation. Moderate and severe deafness were the most represented and were mostly sensory or mixed. Among these deaf children, 4%presented a handicap or an associated pathology. Conclusion.The causes of child deafness in Yaoundé are acquired in perinatal period. This deafness is diagnosed in the perilingual period and remains dominated by bilateral deafness, whether severe or profound

Transport experiences of people with disabilities during learnerships

Transport is a known national barrier for people with disabilities in South Africa. It is similarly identified as a barrier in learnerships and economic opportunity programmes. This article discusses the extent to which transport is a barrier during learnerships for students with disabilities. The Department of Transport administered an online evaluation questionnaire to a random sample of students with disabilities. Results were coded in terms of 'barriers to access' and 'barriers to participation'. The data were organised into themes. The collated evidence is discussed in this article. The findings demonstrated that transport barriers were present in different modes of transport and different parts of the travel chain. However, the findings also demonstrated the negative impact of transport on the learnership experience and economic opportunities. The findings indicated that inaccessible transport is an integral cause of learnership incompletion for students with disabilities, where the universal accessibility of both transport and the built environment are a prerequisite need. Most students with disabilities reported that transport was not a barrier to learnership participation or that problems with transport could be resolved. Nevertheless, it was one of the identified barriers that negatively affected learnership participation experiences. It was a significant barrier to learnership completion for students with the most severe experience of disability. The sample consisted of only 32 students and a high number of unspecified responses. Evidence from other studies indicates that transport for all persons with disabilities remains a barrier warranting further examination, because public transport has remained inaccessible for over 23 years. Further research is required to verify this study and to investigate learnership cost­benefit for all students