Home > Audiology Academic/Professional Guidelines .:
If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions related to audiologists with hearing loss, please contact: Sam Atcherson at audiology@amphl.org.
Some unique obstacles faced by deaf/hard of hearing audiologists and audiology students are:
Administering speech-based tests
Next to the assessment of hearing using pure tones, the assessment of speech comprehension is also an important component in audiologic testing. Speech testing requires at least two skills: (1) the ability to generate the speech stimuli by live voice or pre-recorded materials on tape or CD and (2) the ability to listen or attend to and record the patient’s verbal or alternative behavioral response. Many audiologists generate the speech stimuli using their own voice, however, this practice is discouraged because no two people have the same dialect and there are distinctive differences between male and female voices. Standardized, pre-recorded material is best and thereby is a unique tool for audiologists with hearing loss, particularly if their own speech is not as clear or intelligible. In recording patient responses, the audiometer’s sound system may be sufficient to allow the student with hearing loss to hear the patient’s verbal responses accurately. If this task proves difficult, the student with hearing loss may use an assistive listening device (ALD) by placing the microphone directly on the shirt or lapel of the patient with the student wearing the receiver. The student therefore will have improved the signal-to-noise ratio of (SNR or S/N ratio) the patient’s voice over any other extraneous noise. If the student with hearing loss cannot use his/her own hearing, an assistant or helper could be selected to record the patient’s responses. Because the clinical training experience involves the gradual progression toward independence, a student who cannot use his/her own hearing may need a hired assistant serves as the audiology student’s “ears”.
Checking hearing aids and other assistive listening devices (ALDs)
Most people with hearing aids are able to recall an experience when their audiologist, teacher, or parent put on what looks like a stethoscope (called a stethoset) to conduct a listening check. During the listening check, the quality of the sound generated by the hearing aid is assessed. The listening check is even useful to determine if the hearing aid is operational with a good battery, or is unusually weak in gain. Most people can tell during a listening check when a hearing aid is not working appropriately, but sometimes subtle problems cannot be detected during a listening check alone no matter how much experience one has with hearing aids. The next step is generally to perform an electroacoustic analysis of the hearing aid, which provides an objective look at the frequency response of the output of the hearing aid. One does not to “hear” the frequency response, but “see” it. Generally, after a hearing aid is first programmed, an electroacoustic analysis is performed and the frequency response is printed out for documentation. When the hearing aid malfunctions, an electroacoustic check might show even subtle changes in the frequency response that warrant sending the hearing aid to the manufacturer for repair. Seasoned audiologists with and without hearing loss have learned to identify comments made by their patients to identify and rectify minor problems such as feedback and sound quality (too bassy or too tinny) and adjustments are made accordingly. Bottom line is that one does not necessarily need the ability to hear to work with hearing aids.
If one so desires to “listen” subjectively to hearing aids using their own hearing aid or cochlear implant, a trick has been conceived to permit this task using an assistive listening device (ALD) referred to as an “FM system”. The FM system is simply a two-piece ALD designed for a speaker to wear a microphone and the hearing-impaired person to wear a receiver that connects to their hearing aid or cochlear implant. The trick to “listen” to other hearing aids is to use the FM system microphone is such a way to amplify the sounds from the hearing aid you want to listen to. To make the trick work, one needs to find an old stethoset (Figure 2) and an extra grommet (i.e., the tan colored tip). Looking at Figure 3, one will notice that the stethoset tubing has been cut and the extra grommet attached to the cut end. One of the grommets should be fixed securely to the FM microphone and the other end is free to attach to a hearing aid one wants to listen to. Your audiologist or clinical supervisor can show you how to set this up.
Figure 2. Hearing Aid Stethoset or “Listening Scope”
Figure 3. Stethoset Modification
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