Functional auditory assessment and continuing assessment is critical in order to determine the current level of function, develop appropriate goals for intervention, and achieve maximum outcomes. Learning to listen drives everything else: speech intelligibility, language competence, reading, academics, and life-long learning. This course offers a detailed look at functional auditory assessment and intervention, to provide audiologists with a better understanding of hearing loss in children in terms of the broader speech, language, learning and academic contexts.

This course will discuss the importance of supporting and empowering parents and caregivers from the point of a child’s newborn hearing screening through school age. Parents report a need for different types of supports at different points in their family journey and audiologists and other professionals are in a unique position to provide or facilitate support of families across time.

There are many controversies regarding APD testing in school-aged children. Dr. Lucker will discuss the important controversies including evidence that supports or refutes many, such as the youngest age to evaluate a child, whether APD should be recognized as a learning disability in schools, and how to evaluate and interpret APD tests on children identified with intellectual disabilities.

Understanding generational differences can help to improve communication, increase workplace engagement, and lead to more productive audiological counseling and treatment. This course series will provide audiologists with information and ideas for working more effectively with people across the lifespan.

This course will present a new model of integrated psychology/audiology services that facilitates collaborative, patient-centered care. This course will also review strategies on how to counsel families in challenging situations, including poor device usage, anxiety/depression, family socioeconomic stressors, and barriers to care.

Research-based strategies for collaborating with the next generation of your patient's parents and an in-depth look at changes to your practice to meet Millennials in the middle.

For children who are not candidates for air conduction hearing aids, bone conduction hearing devices are available. Unfortunately, fitting protocols are not well developed for these devices. This is challenging for pediatric audiologists who rely on objective measures of hearing devices to support their patient’s communication development. Bone conduction hearing devices and candidacy considerations for the pediatric population will be reviewed. Findings from a clinical survey will be offered to inform the current practices for fitting these devices in children.

This course will review past and present cochlear implant candidacy criteria for pediatrics and adults, will discuss ways to identify potential cochlear implant patients and will list barriers to appropriate referrals. We will discuss evidence-based research and provide audiological case studies to aid the clinician in counseling the patient and their family on the need to pursue a cochlear implant evaluation.

The purpose of this program is to give pediatric hearing healthcare professionals knowledge of how precisely Widex hearing instruments meet AAA pediatric guidelines by providing children with superior sound quality using specialized features and options.

At Oticon, we have a specific focus on developing technologies and intervention approaches that support the broad range of cognitive development in the child. This session will review the latest solutions designed to support children in both social and educational settings and discuss the latest research documenting the benefits of Oticon Opn for pediatric use.