By Amanda Demas, Kelsey Roy, and Audrey Taylor
This article is a part of the March/April 2018, Volume 30, Number 2, Audiology Today issue.
On Thursday, April 6, 2017, at AudiologyNOW! (now AAA Annual Conference) in Indianapolis, Indiana, the annual Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Audiologists Meeting sparked connections and a desire to change perspectives.
At first, only a few people were gathered around a conference table. However, people were soon grabbing chairs to accommodate everyone trickling into the room. At this meeting, a community was born. Audiology students and professionals with hearing loss went around and shared their own experiences. The hearing losses of those present spanned a variety of types, degrees, and etiologies. Surprisingly, of the 35 attendees, approximately 30 were students.
One by one, the students began to realize they were not alone, and this was a safe place to ask questions and discuss their experiences. Their questions included, “What strategies do you employ to perform listening checks on hearing aids?” “How do you score word recognition more accurately?” “How do you deal with discrimination when it occurs?” At the end of the meeting, the students walked away knowing they established a community, even if they were the only AuD students with hearing loss at their respective universities.
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