Pediatric audiologists are experts on conditioned-play audiometry (CPA). They often work in teams of two, with one operating the audiometer and the other sitting with the child in the booth to help keep the child on task. I recently found myself on my own in a primary-care medical setting testing four- to five-year-olds using tablet-based SHOEBOX Audiometry.
Topic(s): Audiology Today, On Trend, Audiometric Test, Pediatric Audiology, Pediatric, Patient care
The standard behavioral procedures used to assess the hearing of very young children are powerful tools. Yet, even in the hands of a skilled clinician, they are nearly worthless unless the child is ready to be tested. Thus, it is helpful—indeed necessary—to draw on techniques that get the child to do what we want the child to do.
Topic(s): Psychology, Professional Development, immittance, otoacoustic emissions (OAEs), tympanometry, Audiometric Test, Acoustic, auditory brainstem response (ABR)
Hidden hearing loss (HHL) is a popular topic referring to complaints of hearing difficulty or perceived hearing loss despite having “normal” audiometric thresholds. Within the scientific literature, this term has most recently been used to refer specifically to the reduced amplitude of sound-evoked neural responses that occurs with loss of synapses that connect the inner hair cells (IHCs) to the auditory nerve. In other words, the patient’s audiometric difficulties are hidden behind a normal audiogram.
Topic(s): Normal Hearing, perceived hearing complaint, Hidden Hearing Loss (HHL), audiometric threshold, Audiometric Test, inner hair cell (IHC), pure-tone average (PTA), extended high frequencies (EHF), Central auditory processing disorder (CAPD), Auditory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorder ANSD, Tinnitus, hearing handicap inventory for the elderly (HHIE), hearing handicap inventory for the adults (HHIA), noise-induced synaptopathy, auditory brainstem response (ABR), temporary threshold shift (TTS), synaptopathy, speech-in-noise testing (QuickSIN), word-in-noise test, otoacoustic emissions (OAEs), tympanometry and middle-ear muscle reflexes (MEMR), dichotic processing, temporal processing, monaural low-redundancy, binaural interaction, spatial processing, Distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAE), Transient Evoked Otoacoustic Emissions (TEOAE), Auditory Evoked Response
Hearing-care professionals (HCPs) and hearing aid wearers report the chief complaint secondary to hearing loss and to wearing traditional hearing aids, is the inability to understand speech-in-noise (SIN; see Beck et al, 2019). Beck et al (2018) reported that, in addition to the 37 million Americans with audiometric hearing loss, 26 million have hearing difficulty and/or difficulty understanding SIN, despite clinically normal thresholds. As such, helping people hear (i.e., to perceive sound) and helping people listen (i.e., to comprehend, or apply meaning to sound) remains paramount.
Topic(s): speech-in-noise, Hearing, Hearing Loss, Sensorineural Hearing Loss, Noise Reduction, Audiometric Test
