I interviewed my audiologist for this project because she works closely with individuals with hearing loss and hearing aid technology.
1) Where are you from/Where did you grow up?
I am originally from Bay City, Michigan, which is where I grew up.
2) Do you think that had any impact on what career you chose?
I do not believe that growing up there had an influence on my career path.
3) How did you decide that you wanted to become an audiologist?
I decided to pursue Audiology coursework when my academic advisor told me the Intro to Audiology course would be "too hard for me" and discouraged me from taking it. But my personality is a "little" stubborn and I took it anyway. Who was he to tell me something was "too hard for me"! After that course I was hooked on Audiology!
Side note: Don't ever let someone who doesn't believe in you keep you from doing something!
4) What is your favorite part about your job?
I love working with people and hearing their life stories! I also like getting the opportunity to improve quality of life for my patient's on a daily basis!
5) What is your least favorite part about your job?
The paperwork, of course.
6) What is one piece of advice that you would give your patients that you think is really important?
That it is important to make people aware of the difference in their hearing and how important it is to the patient that they be able to communicate with people in their lives. I always encourage my patients to advocate for themselves in a way that helps others to understand that what they say matters to the patient because they care and want to hear it!
7) Any specific experiences that you have had while working with a patient and/or a patients family that has really stuck with you?
There are so many it is hard to think of one to talk about here! I guess the one that really stands out is about one little girl who we identified with hearing loss at around 6 months but her ENT said that she had one normal hearing ear and she didn't need a hearing aid for the ear with hearing loss (which is not the best practice for pediatric audiology – unilateral hearing loss can cause speech delays and academic struggles so hearing aid should be fit). She returned to our office at 4 years of age and was re-tested and the hearing was determined to now be bilateral and progressive. She was fit with hearing aids and LOVED her hearing aids and did so well! She began to show great progress in speech/language therapy sessions and at school. As the hearing loss progressed, we added an FM system for home and school. However, the hearing loss continued to progress to the point where she was not really benefiting from hearing aids as much as initially noted and her auditory performance declined. She will have cochlear implant surgery on the right ear later this month. If she had been initially fit with a hearing aid on the right ear, speech language skills might not be as delayed as they are and we certainly would have picked up on the left hearing loss a lot earlier. Thank goodness for her mother's intuition that something was not right.
8) How much does wearing hearing aids affect a person with hearing loss in an environment with bad acoustics?
Hearing aid technology has improved tremendously. We always have to remember that we are comparing performance with hearing aids in the ear to performance without hearing aids on an ear with hearing loss, not performance with hearing aids to performance of someone with normal hearing in noise or how they performed before hearing loss. For the great majority of my patients, hearing aids provided audibility necessary to understand speech (in quiet or in noise). Without the hearing aids, the speech sounds are not audible and speech will not be clear. As with normal hearing individuals, is will never be as easy to hear in noise as it is in quiet. But with that said, hearing aid technology is handling adverse listening environments better than ever!
9) Anything that I have forgot to ask that you want to add?
I don't think so!
