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Cognition and hearing – you can’t test one with the other!

Cognitive Psychologist, Boaz M Ben-David, provides insights into the import of considering cognitive factors when assessing speech perception ability to maximise intervention success. Failing to do so, he suggests, is “ageist”, a predisposition healthcare professionals must avoid. Cognitive performance is...

Use of automated audiometry for faster patient access to audiology services?

Manual audiometry has long been the gold standard for establishing hearing thresholds. In recent years, a number of automated audiometry applications have reached the market. In this article, a team from Ireland have put a version of automated audiometry to...

Using tele-audiology in Zambia’s ear and hearing care desert

Addressing the medical desert with tele-audiology and tele-education. If a ‘medical desert’ is defined as a community that lives more than 60 miles away from the nearest acute care hospital, then try to imagine an appropriate term for a situation...

Promoting human rights of deaf communities in low-resource settings

Stigma and misconceptions about deafness are serious impediments for many deaf people to realise rights and potential in some of the most challenging situations globally. Around 430 million people are estimated to live with moderate or higher levels of hearing...

Genetics and the newborn hearing screen: the future is now

Eliot Shearer shares the progress being made with newborn hearing screening 60 years on from where it started, and future directions for identifying hearing loss using physiologic, genetic and cCMV screening. Newborn screening had its birth in the early 1960s,...

OTC hearing aids: where are we now?

The ‘Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act’ of 2017 set in motion plans for a long-debated shift in the hearing care market. In 2021, the FDA released draft guidance which will allow hearing aids in the US to be sold direct to...

What you need to know about recent advances in genetics of hearing loss in the newborn

Identifying the underlying genetic cause of hearing loss in newborns can improve dramatically the early diagnosis and appropriate intervention. Hearing loss is the most common sensory disorder at birth, affecting approximately two out of 1000 newborns [1]. Congenital impaired hearing...

Adult speech testing in the UK

What do hearing healthcare providers see as the benefits and barriers to delivering speech testing? This article explores the latest research. Why speech testing? Speech tests have been used across ENT and audiology practice to measure an individual’s speech recognition...

Tinnitus treatment device from concept to commercialisation

Innovation in the field of healthcare is fraught with nearly insurmountable challenges. Bringing a novel product to the market requires a new (patentable) idea that can be reduced to practice, manufactured at scale, and can pass all regulatory barriers. In...

Early detection pathways for congenital cytomegalovirus for infants referred from the newborn hearing screen

This article discusses requirements for an early congenital cytomegalovirus (cCMV) detection pathway to ensure children do not miss out on the opportunity for timely diagnosis and treatment. The pathways described are currently in use in England and apply to well...

Deafness impact on child development

Deafness can affect multiple aspects of a child’s development. This article explores these impacts and underscores the vital role audiologists play in early intervention. As an audiologist, learning and understanding the impact of deafness on a child’s development was an...