Denis Byrne Memorial Lecture
Title: The Communication Partner: Conversation, Context and Cooperation
Presenter: Dr Christopher Lind, PhD,
Senior Lecturer in Audiology,
Flinders University, South Australia
Abstract:
When adults seek assistance to reduce the impact of their hearing impairment they commonly report that the most disabling of everyday events are the miscommunications that arise in conversation. Everyday
interaction involves complex, co-ordinated behaviours and its conduct is influenced by many factors. Foremost amongst these is the role played by the communication partner. When miscommunications arise in everyday talk people tend to work together to repair them. Research at Flinders University has identified certain patterns of free and unstructured talk between adults with hearing impairment and their familiar communication
partners. These highlight the role played by the communication partner in ameliorating the effects of acquired hearing impairment as a communication disorder. It is apparent from this work that communication partners influence and in turn are influenced by the conduct of these conversations. However, assessment
and intervention models for hearing loss remain largely focused on the individual with hearing impairment and auditory rather than communicative outcomes. This presentation will address the role of the communication partner in the conduct of everyday talk. Further, it will focus on the consequences of this for the design of outcome measures in rehabilitation services for adult hearing impairment and adult onset communication disorders more generally.
Dr Christopher Lind, PhD
Senior Lecturer in Audiology, Flinders University, South Australia
Christopher is Senior Lecturer in Audiology at Flinders University in South Australia. He holds undergraduate degrees in Arts from the University of Melbourne and in Speech Pathology from the Lincoln Institute of Health Sciences. He completed his Audiology qualification at the University of Melbourne in 1986. He holds a Masters degree by research from LaTrobe University and completed his PhD at the University of Queensland in 2006. Christopher has practiced, taught and researched in adult aural rehabilitation for more than 25 years, working at the HEAR Service, Victorian Deaf Society from 1987 until he took his first teaching position in 1996. His major research interests include conversation repair and psychosocial aspects of adult hearing impairment. Christopher has been an invited speaker at conferences in North America, the UK, Scandinavia and Europe. He has been on the Faculty of the Ida Institute in Copenhagen since 2010 and was International Scholar-in-Residence at the Faculty of Health Sciences' National Centre for Audiology, University of Western Ontario in Canada between May and August, 2013.