Demographics of Persons under the age of 21 years with Hearing Aids

Summary of demographic details of persons under the
age of 21 years with a hearing impairment who are fitted
with a hearing aid or cochlear implant at 31 December
2011
Australian Hearing provided services to 16325 children under the age of 21 years who were fitted
with hearing aids and/or cochlear implants at the end of 2011. The distribution of these children
by state/territory is shown below.
Figure 1: National Aided Persons under 21 years of Age by State and Territory as at 31 December 2011
NSW VIC QLD WA SA TAS ACT NT National
Number 4724 3874 3490 1879 1163 259 347 589 16325
Proportion of
clients (%) 28.9% 23.7% 21.4% 11.5% 7.1% 1.6% 2.1% 3.6% 100.0%
Table 1. Total Children Fitted with Hearing Aids (2011)
Over the past five years the aided child client base has grown by close to 24%, with WA, SA and NT
showing the biggest increases. However the growth rate appears to be slowing overall.
NSW VIC QLD WA SA TAS ACT NT National
Increase 14.44% 13.08% 30.42% 58.83% 34.92% 6.15% 4.20% 85.80% 23.97%
Table 2: Growth in the number of aided children from 2006-2011
©Australian Hearing 2012 Page 4 of 33