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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Does Every Child With Hearing Loss Need an FM?

I received an email yesterday from an audiologist who is just beginning to work in an educational setting. She asked whether I thought a newly identified four and a half year old with a mild to moderately severe hearing loss needed an FM system. She had asked colleagues their opinion. One said yes, and two said no – that the

Cost-Benefit Ratio of Auditory-Verbal Therapy

Last week I had the honor of visiting London and, among other things, got to visit Auditory Verbal UK. (AVUK TM) This is a wonderful center which has been very successful in mainstreaming children with hearing loss. One of the questions which often comes up is whether the cost of auditory-verbal therapy justifies the benefit. Those of us who work

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Does It Make A Difference Who Does Therapy For Kids With Hearing Loss?

The short answer is YES. SLP Services for Children with Hearing Loss I value the work of speech-language pathologists. I am a speech-language pathologist (among a few other things) but I can tell you that my training as an SLP did not prepare me to provide high quality services to children with hearing loss. Why? Education of SLP’s –

Mexico

I apologize for missing the last blog. I was in Mexico City and the earthquake happened. Internet was very intermittent, I could connect with my phone sometimes but not with the computer, and the chaos took over. I was there to speak at a conference run by the Aurea Auditory Verbal Center. I had arrived a day early and went

A New A-V book

Ellen Rhodes and Jill Duncan have written an excellent new book: AUDITORY-VERBAL PRACTICE: Family-Centered Early Intervention, 2nd Edition; published by Thomas, 2017. It will be appreciated by all clinicians in auditory-verbal practice, and others working with families. Even clinicians with many years of practice will find useful information in this book. The book is different than other books that deal

It’s A New School Year

What do parents need to do to help make the school year successful? First, parents need to remember that they are the experts. You need to be involved in all decisions about your child. Professionals know a lot, but you know your child. In addition, you are the person who has the most invested in being sure that your child

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After Hearing Screening – What?

The Joint Commission on Infant Hearing has set guidelines requiring that newborns be screened by one month, diagnosed by 3 months, and receive intervention by 6 months. With all the new data about the earlier the better, the Joint Commission is considering moving from the 1-3-6 model to a 1-2-3 model. I am certainly a fan of moving to the

Summer For Children With Hearing Loss

School is out. Summer is in. What does that mean for children with hearing loss? There is a lot of data which shows that many children lose skills over the summer – children with typical hearing and those with hearing loss. So what should families do to prevent children from losing skills over the summer, and to be sure that

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The Debate That Never Ends

An article published last week in Pediatrics reports on research which will add critical information to the debate about using sign language and/or spoken language when educating children who are deaf and hard of hearing. As we all know, 92% of children with hearing loss are born to families with normal hearing who do not know sign language. When they have

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Listening To Families

When we are working with families of children with hearing loss, especially newly identified children, we are anxious to share information that we think is critical. We (or at least I) want to get technology on babies within days, weeks at most, and get the baby into therapy. As part of this effort, we sometimes do not wait for families