This article reflects on the author's experience supervising a public school program for students who are deaf or hard-of-hearing, specifically addressing national, regional, and local trends affecting it. These trends included teacher efficacy, changes in educational service delivery, advances in technology, the selection of the listening and…

In Indiana, families with newly identified deaf and hard of hearing children may have varying experiences in discovering the support systems available to them. Indiana has a Part C early intervention (EI) program, known as First Steps, that serves all children at risk or identified with a disability. This program, however, is not yet seamless in…

Relative to Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI), New Mexico struggles with multiple points of referral into early intervention in the same way most states do. Referrals are not systematized through a single point of entry. The Step*Hi (statewide Parent-Infant) Program of the New Mexico School for the Deaf (NMSD) receives referrals from…

Pediatric audiologists play a vital role in detection, diagnosis, and intervention for young children with hearing loss and their families. Preparing the next generation of pediatric audiologists necessitates a creative approach that balances the requirements of a broad curriculum with the special skills needed to serve a unique and varied…

Developments in universal newborn hearing screening programs and assistive hearing technology have had considerable effects on the speech, language, and educational success of children who are deaf or hard of hearing. Several recent research studies of children who are deaf or hard of hearing and who use spoken language as their primary method of…

This profile describes the University of Hartford's new Master of Education degree program in Aural Habilitation and Education of Hearing-Impaired Children. The Aural Habilitation and Education graduate program was conceptualized as a model partnership between Capitol Region Education Council (CREC) Soundbridge, the largest public provider of…

The investigation explored effects of stimulus level on frequency discrimination of long- and short-duration pure tones by five subjects with normal hearing and seven with sensorineural hearing impairments. The performance of hearing impaired subjects was poorer than normal for 300-ms tones but not for 5-ms tones. (Author/DB)

Binaural loudness summation was measured using three different paradigms with 10 normally hearing and 20 bilaterally symmetrical high-frequency sensorineural hearing loss subjects. Binaural summation increased with presentation level using the loudness matching procedure, with values in the 6-10 dB range. Summation decreased with level using the…

According to the Royal National Institute for the Deaf, between eight and nine million people suffer from some form of deafness or loss of hearing. Modern technology, however, together with the work of audiologists such as Karen Shepherd, enables many adults and children to recover near-normal levels of hearing, even when they have suffered some…

Background/Context: This article returns to and expands upon Cremin's and Garfinkel's ideas about education as work--deliberate, systematic, and sustained work--that changes one's consociates, whether planned or not. That is, education must be seen as occurring everywhere, to and by everyone, in many contexts other than in classrooms or schools.…

The study was conducted to obtain information on test-retest differences in Articulation Indices (AI) when a clinical threshold-based method is used to calculate AI. Standard deviations were greatest when the AI was near 50 percent and were also dependent on the relationship of the hearing thresholds and speech spectrum. (Author/DB)

Because children who are deaf or hard of hearing are being identified at birth, fitted with advanced hearing technology, and enrolled in early intervention programs, families increasingly seek professionals who can provide services that support their choice of listening and spoken language. The increased demand for these services and shortages of…

A 25-item survey was administered to 45 teachers to identify what they knew about Minimal Hearing Loss (MHL) and to verify or refute five possible misperceptions reported earlier by Goldberg and McCormick Richburg (2004). Results support the importance of an educational audiologist on the service delivery team to help teachers understand the…

Children and adolescents (N=199) with autistic disorder were audiologically evaluated. Mild to moderate hearing loss was diagnosed in 7.9 percent, with deafness diagnosed in 3.5 percent of all cases, which represented a prevalence considerably above that in the general population and comparable to the prevalence found in populations with mental…

FM (frequency modulation) classroom amplification systems are described. Advantages for students with only minimal hearing losses as well as those more seriously affected are noted. Research on FM classroom systems and input from 20 teachers support the use of this technology with students who need a slightly higher volume level of instruction.…