Catherine Palmer, in her General Assembly Speech at the Academy’s 2019 annual conference, inspired us by emphasizing that audiologists have an incredibly important and expanded role in the health and well-being of the people we serve.
“Audiologists start a chain of events for a child that will promote reading, education, and employment,” she said in her address.
That chain of events starts with a child learning to listen and learning spoken language. This article will address the audiologist’s role in those events from a very practical perspective.
Topic(s): Audiologist, Professional Development, auditory information, auditory neural pathways, Hearing Loss, Hearing Aids, Cochlear Implants (CI), Parents’ Evaluation of Aural/Oral Performance of Children (PEACH), auditory brainstem response (ABR), visual reinforcement audiology (VRA)
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
