Rose L. Allen

Fitting and Dispensing Hearing Aids

Fitting and Dispensing Hearing Aids by Taylor and Mueller is a valuable contribution to the present literature on hearing aids. The work is clinically based and provides step-by-step instructions and procedures. These protocols can be easily adapted to private practices, ENT physician offi ces, and university clinics. For every chapter, the authors stress the applicability of the concepts to the hearing-aid fi tting and dispensing process. The authors have accomplished what they set out to do — provide the audiology community with a text that is educational yet entertaining. Consistent with Mueller ’ s writing style, a bit of humor has been infused to keep the reader interested. Taylor and Mueller have taken highly technical concepts, such as those associated with advanced hearing-aid features, and made them easy to understand. As stated in the preface (page vii), the text will appeal to many audiences but it is primarily intended for undergraduate students or non-audiologists who have not yet fi t hearing aids, audiology assistants, and speech-language pathologists. The fi rst chapters are presented at a beginner level, whereas the latter chapters are more advanced and will appeal more to seasoned professionals who want to update their skills or re-tool on the basics of hearing-aid selection, measurement, basic and advanced features, validation, and verifi cation. The text reads well and the ‘ readability ’ is enhanced by the infusion of humor as well as a ‘ theme ’ for each chapter. From country western song lyrics to wine tasting to baseball and basketball, the authors have woven these ‘ themes ’ into the information to provide us a text that is entertaining and inspiring. This text rates a 10 on the RI (Readability Index, not to be confused with the Rollover Index)! While the use of English is correct, there are many instances of substituted or misspelled words that should be corrected in the next edition. (For example: p. 3, personally instead of personality; p. 100, valve instead of value; p. 220, ACGo instead of AGCo; p. 226, then instead of than; p. 296, verity instead of verify; and many more). The title of this text and the chapter titles are appropriate. The authors clearly state how the content is applicable to the hearing aid fi tting and dispensing process. Especially worth mentioning are the ‘ Tips and Tricks ’ and ‘ Take Five ’ boxes throughout the text that are used to highlight important concepts. The reader should fi nd these extremely helpful. As a ‘ seasoned ’ hearing-aid dispensing audiologist, this reviewer found Chapters 8 – 11 very valuable. The fi gures and tables also facilitate learning for the reader. The captions are clear and concise, yet detailed enough for the reader to understand the applicability to the concepts being discussed. The reviewer noticed that a few captions are incorrect/incomplete (Figures 2.4, 12.3, 12.7). Some fi gures have camera fl ash glare that is distracting to the reader (Figures 4.5 and 4.12). In comparison to other undergraduate textbooks, the number of references appears to be less than expected. For this comprehensive text, only 28 references are listed. Many of these are textbooks which are relevant and comprehensive. The authors have mentioned within each chapter many applicable web-sites and on-line resources that the reader will fi nd helpful. A note of caution is that some of the URLs are not active. I would highly recommend this text to those in academia who want to add a course in hearing aids to their undergraduate programs or who would like to infuse more information on hearing aids into an undergraduate aural rehabilitation course. It is also a valuable resource for those working as audiology assistants or technicians. Hearing aid license boards may want to consider adopting some of the chapters in this text as mandatory reading for the license examinations. This text is a great addition to our selection of resources on hearing aids.

Differences Between the 1993 and 2007 Standards for the Certificate of Clinical Competence in Audiology

ABSTRACT Individuals applying for their initial American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Certificate of Clinical Competence in Audiology (CCC-A) must now adhere to the 2007 Certification...