Over the years, there has been an expansion of group aural rehabilitation programs facilitated by audiologists to support new hearing aid users and their families. These programs focus on hearing aid use, the psychosocial aspects of living with hearing loss, collaborative problem solving, and the facilitation of communication strategies (Kricos, 2000). There are numerous advantages to offering group aural rehabilitation, but what makes a program successful?

In the March/April 2018 issue of Audiology Today, I compared the professions of audiology and optometry and examined some of the successes of optometry in establishing autonomy and an expanded scope of practice. You may want to stop here and give it a read. I’ll wait.

Glad you came back.

More specifically, this article will (1) describe the principles of family-centered practice in adult audiologic rehabilitation, (2) summarize observations of family-centered behaviors in current audiologic rehabilitation, and (3) identify opportunities to increase the family-centeredness of adult audiologic rehabilitation. To address these aims, we will outline the research evidence behind family-centered care (FCC) (the why), and from this, describe how FCC might best be implemented in audiologic rehabilitation.

Audiology is the study of one of the most important senses we possess as human beings: a sense that connects us 24/7 to our environment, to other people through a real-time fusion of mind and emotion we call speech, and to the opportunities of life that arise from being in the right place at the right time.

Yet, despite all this, society largely seems to consider hearing care irrelevant. It often takes a crisis in a person’s life before someone seeks out an audiologist—if they seek us out at all.