Hearing and Kids

Educational audiology is a critical subspecialty in the  field of audiology. The role of an educational audiologist is different in different settings but basically,  the educational audiologist  is responsible for managing audiological issues for children  in  schools. Large school districts may have a full time educational audiologist, others may have one part  time,  or one as a consultant who comes

This edition of Hearing and Kids, is written by David Luterman. David was my first audiology professor, he gave me my first job as an audiologist when he started the Thayer-Lindsey Nursery for Deaf Children, and he continues to be my mentor.  I attribute much of my success in pediatric audiology to David. When I first worked with David, I walked

Two ears are better than one. We fit eyeglasses in pairs. (Monocles went out of style with Peter Wimsey.)  We routinely think about fitting bilateral hearing aids on kids. Research clearly demonstrates that two ears are a big help in noisy situations and in  locating the source of sound. It has taken much longer to get this going for cochlear

This is not exactly a kid issue but it is an audiology issue so I have decided that I can write about it in my blog. I got new hearing aids last week. I have had a high frequency hearing loss for several years. I  have tried hearing aids in the past and,  while I got some benefit,  it was

in my last blog I discussed looking at hearing in each ear to make decisions about technology. Now I would like to talk about looking at speech perception in each ear to  manage technology. Why do we need two ears? There is tons of research about the advantages of two ears. Two ears help when the signal is not clear

When we describe hearing loss we usually only report one thing: “He has a mild hearing loss” or “She has a profound hearing loss.”  But the situation is much more complex than that. Hearing loss is frequently different in each ear. It is not unusual for a child to have a  moderate hearing loss in one ear and a severe

How do you know when it is time to consider a cochlear implant? Well, the answer to that is constantly changing. When implants were first developed the only candidates were people with very profound hearing loss who had been hearing impaired since birth. People with better hearing and children were not initially candidates. As implants improved,  implant criteria expanded. Children

I have just read a most fascinating book. It is about how one woman’s cancer cells developed into the entire field of cell biology and virology. But even more importantly, it is a book about the development of human subject controls and protection in all areas of medical research. I very highly recommend The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by

John I recently did school visits for two kids who were having problems in school. Before I went I asked the parents to get me all the recent reports so I  would know how the  child was doing. Child 1 (Let’s call him John) has two cochlear implants and is in third grade. He has received auditory verbal therapy privately and

This week’s blog is written by my good friend Fran Santore. She is a speech-language pathologist who worked for many years as the Director of Communication Therapies at the New York League for the Hard of Hearing (now the Center for Hearing and Communication). She then moved into working with children in an elementary school where she continued her work