Out of Sight, Out of Mind?

By James R. Curran

This article is a part of the November/December 2018, Volume 30, Number 6, Audiology Today issue.

Buried in the past are stories, events, and people that have been forgotten over time. As a result, the rich mosaic of accomplishments and contributions of earlier times become lost to succeeding generations. We’ve all read about early pioneers who braved hardship, toiled under adverse circumstances, and eventually overcame the obstacles they encountered. The hearing aid industry also has its share of visionary engineers and scientists, who, despite unforeseen difficulties and constraints, persevered and are responsible for the advances and inventions in hearing aid amplification taken for granted by clinicians today. It is a fact that the vast majority of the hearing aids that are fitted these days incorporate technology and features that were developed and invented many decades ago.

In the very early years of the audiology profession, audiologists were not tuned in to the importance of hearing aid engineering and the role it played in supporting the success of daily clinical practice. There was a general attitude of skepticism about the hearing aid industry. Its claims and practices were suspect, for it generally was held that the manufacturers and dealers of the time were solely driven by monetary considerations. In one leading program, for example, audiology students expressly were directed to ignore the most authoritative book on hearing aids available, Hearing Tests and Hearing Instruments (Watson and Tolan, 1949).

This instruction was motivated, in part, because the book's co-author, Leland Watson, was the founder and president of Maico, a hearing aid manufacturer (Harford, 2015). Many articles in various technical and industry journals written by innovative hearing aid company engineers similarly were dismissed and rarely referenced during those early years, e.g., Goldberg (1966, 1972, 1986, 1988), Stearns (1977, 1979, 1980, 1984), Victoreen (1963, 1968, 1973, 1974), and Villchur (1973, 1973, 1978). And yet, these publications contain the seeds of today’s mature technologies and applications.