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Having Audiology As A Profession

By Roxanne Cruz


The branch of science that studies hearing, balance and its disorder is called audiology. Catering to the needs of every child and adult, Long Island audiology has been serving for quite sometime. Audiology specialists, or audiologists, are health care professionals who have a specialization in diagnosing and treating disorders of the ears and its parts and other related issues.

They find out if you are within the normal range of hearing by employing different tests, and if not, how affected are you by the disorder. They are trained to assist you in installing cochlear implants, and administering hearing aids. Adults who have become deaf are given coping and compensate skills and parents who have a deaf child are given counseling to cope.

Audiologists provide various services like hearing tests, speech audiometry, and vestibular assessments. These tests are usually conducted in rooms that are soundproofed and has calibrated equipment. Some of these tests are otoscopy, which is an assessment of the state of the outer canal and the eardrum.

Tympanometry is an examination to test the middle ear, the mobility of the eardrum, and the conduction bones by creating variations of air pressure in the ear canal. Speech audiometry is a fundamental tool in assessing hearing loss and it determines if a person has discomfort or tolerance to speech stimuli and it gives information on word recognition abilities. Pure tone audiometry is the key test to determine the threshold level of an individual that determines the degree of sensory loss.

The organ of hearing, cochlea, which is part of the inner ear, can be assessed through the otoacoustics emissions evaluation. People who are having balance and dizziness issues are assessed through vestibular assessment. Evoked potential test checks the pathways from the ears to the brain, especially the auditory nerve and the brain stem.

These evaluations are needed to make a sure diagnosis of the ear and balance disorders. They also provide options for managing sensory and vestibular conditions, including amplification and therapy. They are equipped to determine what hearing aids or listening devices are needed for you and make the necessary adjustments.

Audiologists often work with teams with other health care professionals like speech pathologists, physicians, physical therapists, and occupational therapists. Some work with the general patients while others specialize in child care. There are also some who work as researchers or scientists.

To practice, you need four years of undergraduate study and four years of education and professional training before you will earn your doctorate in audiology. For you to be knowledgeable and prepared diagnosing and treating disorders, you need to have at nearly two thousand hours of clinical rotations which are supervised. In all states, audiologists should have a proper license.

This field is developing rapidly since there has been a high demand for them. Usually, the patients are elderly people or young children. Visit your nearest Long Island Audiology center and have your ears checked up.




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