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It's really interesting to see sort of a dichotomy in Audiology education,
in that our field is exploding so rapidly with technology in our scope of
practice.
Yet it's really important to have a very firm foundation;
thus the Back-to-Basics series.
I look at Audiology as
an area of study that's sort of similar to
perhaps mathematics or a
language where we build, and if we don't have that solid firm foundation, we
are at a disadvantage. I'm a real linear thinker, so as I think
methodically about
Audiology education, I think about, first of all, laying the hearing science
foundation, and then i think about
moving toward assessment, and then I think about moving toward treatment.
Dr. Berlin will be presenting on September 25th
and I know that all of our wonderful lecturers are going to present what they
feel they would really like to cover, but we're
talking about some areas, for example, with regard to acoustics,
with regard to again moving from more simple harmonic motion in the more
complex
waveforms, thinking about
psychoacoustics, really laying the foundation for clinical audiology
and then also looking at the anatomy and physiology of the ear,
and getting those basics down before we move forward with diagnostic audiology.
Our second person in the series is Dr. Ross Roeser, and he'll be
presenting, I believe it's the very next week on October 2nd.
He'll be talking about calibration
and I know that many of us feel, including myself, that it's something we
don't do that often,
but how very important and he's going to be talking about the ANSI standards
and
how very all-encompassing the calibration process is, and I think
that there is a
dual part process; it's really important to get the basics down. It's so important
with regard to our audiologic testing and really being able to obtain a valid
audiogram. The second part to that that I see with our students is of
course
the hands-on experience that I think all audiologists should know how to do, and so
he'll be providing some basics for how to do that.
I am honored to present and that's getting into the basic testing, that's getting into
audiologic testing, pure-tone testing,
interpretation of the audiogram. I, of course, see students every day in my
position as Director of Audiology studies at Washington University, and one of the big
areas that we find our clinical supervisors
are seeing that we need to be fortified
is the interpretation of the audiogram, and to really have the skills down pat
immediately and not have to think about them. So
I'm going to be talking about that area as well as
how obtain a valid audiogram, some of the areas that can really influence our
testing, and we're going to be talking about really gaining those clinical
insights as opposed to being a technician, how to really become an
audiologist and really be able to
interpret those findings and then go to the next step
with regard to interpretation.
Our next presenter is Dr. Lisa Hunter and she'll be presenting on
Immittance audiometry.
What we have in mind is that we talk about some of the basics including
tympanometry,
how to interpret those areas.
I love that our field is exploding with new technology, but as I also tell my
students, it's so easy now to just
push a button and there's a tympanogram. So really
what's behind that measurement that we're obtaining.
Dr. Hunter will also be talking about the acoustic reflex,
perhaps some multifrequency typmanometry, some of the research, of
course,
that is ongoing in all of these areas and evidence-based practice, how to
apply those principles to our daily practice, and then along with the
imittance area, some of the other areas like acoustic reflex testing and acoustic
reflex decay.
Then our final presenter is Dr. Christi Yoshinago-Itano,
and we're going to take a lot of this information that we've talked about with
regard to assessment
and we'll talk about how to adapt it for the pediatric population.
So we're very, very excited about
talking about early identification of children who might be deaf or hard of
hearing,
and then also looking at early intervention,
and looking at amplification, cochlear implants, parent/infant programs and
the educational process. So
those are all tall orders to fill within an hour, but we are going to do
our best.