Educational Audiology

There are various online forums for Teachers of the Deaf and parents of deaf children, in the UK and other parts of the world.  The British Association of Teachers of the Deaf (BATOD) manages an email forum.

You are welcome to join the online community to keep in touch with other developments, please register to join the MESHConnect general online community. 

Further research into the national picture of Educational Audiologist provision across the UK would be beneficial to highlight areas where these skills are not in place or stretched to capacity due to lack of funding or available expertise.

The inclusion of an Educational Audiologist in Service provision can have a long term positive impact on the achievement of deaf children and young people. Promoting multi-disciplinary working with health and other agencies results in improved communication and enhanced provision. Keeping a breast of on going changes in technology can be challenging for professionals following their initial training. An Educational Audiologist can provide the vital link in future proofing a Service, by providing continual professional developments and updates to Teacher of the Deaf and other professionals.

Information relating to Educational Audiology internationally has been provided in this guide. The focus on training and most dissertation studies are related to research in the UK.

Further research and data collection would be beneficial to consider the role of the Educational Audiologist across local authorities in the UK. There is much variation in terms of the Educational Audiology time provided in different authorities and how this relates to the size of the authority and the number of deaf children supported. Further research would no doubt show that provision is not equitable across the UK, with some areas benefiting from significantly more Educational Audiology time than others.

Rosenberg, Underwood, Turner and Whyte in 2016 presented a poster to the British Academy of Audiology Conference entitled Acoustics, Listening and Learning MESHGuide: Translational research for improving signal to noise ratio.  This undertook to introduce MESHGuides as a resource for audiologists accessing educational translational research.

A BATOD conference poster in 2020 authored by three Educational Audiologists highlights how the role can support audiology in early identification as well as complex needs. 

Linking Up Listening Life a holistic approach across disciplines  presentation at Deaf Children Now Conference 2019, gave an update on resources used to take a holistic approach across disciplines such as supporting audiology.  

Bibliography  (Also see Dissertations by Educational Audiologists).

American Academy of Audiology  https://edaud.org [accessed Oct 2020]

American Speech Language Hearing Association https://www.asha.org [accessed Oct 2020]

Audiology Australia https://audiology.asn.au/Home [accessed Oct 2020]

The following lists are provided to the best of authors’ current knowledge at time of writing, and are unlikely to be exhaustive.  Readers are welcome to comment to make additions.

Professional Associations for Educational Audiologists

• British Association of Educational Audiologists 
• Educational Audiology Association