Jane Madell

Jane Madell, PhD, has a consulting practice in pediatric audiology. She is an audiologist, speech-language pathologist, and LSLS auditory verbal therapist, with a BA from Emerson College and an MA and PhD from the University of Wisconsin. Her 45+ years experience ranges from Deaf Nursery programs to positions at the League for the Hard of Hearing (Director), Long Island College Hospital, Downstate Medical Center, Beth Israel Medical Center/New York Eye and Ear Infirmary as director of the Hearing and Learning Center and Cochlear Implant Center. Jane has taught at the University of Tennessee, Columbia University, Downstate Medical School, and Albert Einstein Medical School, published 7 books, and written numerous books chapters and journal articles, and is a well known international lecturer.

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Support for Children with Hearing Loss

School is starting. As we think about what services we need to provide the children, we need to remember that one of the services that we need to provide children with are support services. Children with hearing loss who are mainstreamed are often the only child with hearing loss in their class, and often the only one in their school.

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What does 4000 Hz tell you?

We all know hearing aids make things louder. But does it matter exactly how much louder and whether it makes it louder throughout the frequency spectrum? Everyone will say yes, it does. But how often do we check that hearing aids (or cochlear implants) are doing what we hope they are doing? Is it okay to hear well through 2000

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Screen Time For Kids With Hearing Loss

There has been discussion about how much screen time is reasonable for children. When my children were growing up it was less of a problem. The only “screen” was the TV and somehow, even then, I knew that we had to limit time. They were allowed one hour a day. When they were little it was only Sesame Street. As

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Please Let’s Test Speech Perception

Please lets test speech perception. I am hearing from so many speech-language pathologists, listening and spoken language specialists, teachers of the deaf and parents that their audiologists are not doing speech perception testing. WHY? What is the reason we use technology? The one and only reason is to improve understanding of speech. Technology makes sound louder, not always clear. By

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Back to School

Living in New York City, it is hard for me to believe that children are already starting back to school. In NY kids go to school until the end of June and then don’t start up until after Labor Day. That said, we need to get our kids ready for school. Starting a new school year can be really stressful

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Why Do We Need the Ling 6 sound Test?

Everyone who provides therapy for children with hearing loss knows about the Ling 6 Sound Test. Why do we do the test and what does it tell us? What does a Child Hear? For children to succeed with listening and spoken language they need to hear. To quote Dan Ling – “what they hear is what they say.” One of

Why Kids Need Boom Mics

I have recently returned from a workshop I did for the staff at Lincoln Public Schools in Lincoln Nebraska. The room was packed with teachers of the deaf, speech-language pathologists, audiologists and school administrators. There was no question but that we needed a remote microphone system to allow everyone to hear. As usual, I was given an FM with a

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Conversational Turns Linked To Better Communication

We all know that we need to provide a lot of language to children to help them develop language, literacy and social skills. Hart and Risley showed in 1995 that children who heard 30,000 words in a 14 hour day had significantly higher language skills and IQ than children who heard 14,000 or 7,000 words. Dana Suskind, and ENT in

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Listening Fatigue for Children with Hearing Loss (CHL)

Today’s blog is written by Hilary Davis, AuD; Ben Hornsby, PhD, Stephen Camarata, PhD, and Fred Bess, PhD from Vanderbilt University. This is an important topic and they are doing wonderful research in this area. What is fatigue? Fatigue is something most everyone has experienced. Despite its omnipresence, fatigue can be difficult to define as there is no agreed

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Auditory Processing Disorder

Auditory processing disorders are one of the more controversial issues in audiology. I think we have reached the point were we all agree that auditory processing disorders exist, but how to diagnose, who can diagnose, and how to treat are up for debate. Can a speech-language pathologist, or psychologist make the diagnosis or only an audiologist? Do you really have