Departments
Features
Welcome to the Special Issue on the University of Ottawa!
We hope that you will enjoy these articles as a brief glimpse of hearing healthcare activities and research in the Ottawa region.
An Innovative Clinical Placement in a First Nations Community
This article describes a hearing screening pilot project carried out in November-December 2019 in partnership with the Eenchokay Birchstick School (EBS) located in the Pikangikum First Nations Reserve (Ontario).
Hearing Innovation – Improving Healthcare for Canadians
To help address the problem of limited access to testing and diagnosis in at-risk populations, our research group has partnered with businesses and healthcare organizations to use SHOEBOX QuickTest to systematically identify patients with hearing loss as a routine part of hospital care.
The Digit Triplet Test: A Canadian Version
Lagacé et al get us up to speed on A Canadian version of the Digit Triplets Test (CDTT) was been developed by a team of researchers at the University of Ottawa and Toronto.
Hearing Loss Prevalence and Loud Noise Exposure During Leisure and Work
Katya Feder shares her research indicating that a large number of Canadians are at risk for noise-induced hearing loss should this noise exposure pattern persist over several years.
Reverse Alarms on Vehicles: Which One is Better?
Reverse (or back up) alarms are mandatory on most heavy vehicles. Such alarms must be well designed and properly installed to be effective (clearly audible and elicit sufficient reaction from workers or pedestrians near reversing vehicles), without being excessively loud to the point of creating noise annoyance in the community.
Auditory Implications in Pediatric Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: Where Do We Need to Go?
Symptoms following mild traumatic brain injury in children are generally heterogenous (emotional, physical, behavioural or sensory) and their variety and duration following mTBI may make it very difficult for some children to return to school and/or regular activities and proper diagnosis and management of symptoms and conditions is highly important.
Music Learning for Hearing Impaired and Deaf Children: Capabilities and Effects
The uOttawa Piano Pedagogy Research Laboratory, in collaboration with researchers from uOttawa Audiology and the ENT and Otolaryngology clinic at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO), has been running a research program to investigate the abilities of cochlear implant (CI) recipients in learning and performing music, and the effects of music learning on their hearing system and well-being.
Cochlear Implant Decision-Making for Children with Residual Hearing
The proportion of children with residual hearing who receive cochlear implants is increasing across Canada and worldwide. Na et al’s research is a useful first step in providing evidence to assist the CI decision-making process for this specific population.
A Hearing Conservation Education Program for Music Students
The authors write about how the results from their study demonstrated that a hearing conservation program could be beneficial to students of early music careers.
Combining Passive and Interactive Techniques in Tracking Auditory Ecology in Hearing Aid Use
Hearing aid digital signal processing has evolved to include the ability to log, analyze and classify acoustic input, essentially in real-time. The result of this is a series of ongoing acoustic snapshots of what the listener is hearing that can be used in the personalization of the hearing aid (HA) fitting.
Minimizing the Risk of Infection in the Hearing Healthcare Environment
As practices re-open or expand services to return to “normal”, how can we prepare to provide exceptional in-person care in a safe, responsible way? It begins with establishing or updating an infection control protocol to ensure a safe environment for the provision of hearing healthcare services.
How Leaf Blowers Are Trying to Kill Us
In this article, chemical engineer Monty McDonald, the Environment Chair of the Bayview Village Association in Toronto, provides information about the air-born chemical pollution issues relating to leaf blowers.
How Do Medical Masks Degrade Speech Reception?
The speech quality degradation, in combination with room noise/reverberation and the absence of visual cues, renders speech close to unintelligible for many.
Mysteries of the Hearing Brain – Music and the Hearing Brain
Audiologists are most interested in interventions that lead to better speech understanding. However, the evidence for the benefits of music training on speech-in-noise (SIN) performance has been mixed.
Striking the Right Balance – Attention all Vestibular and Pediatric Audiologists: This is Your Next Must Read!
In this edition of “Striking the Right Balance,” Janine Verge, AuD reviews a new edition of a clinical textbook that focuses on pediatric vestibular and balance disorders.
M&RIE Receiver Preferred for Sound Quality and Localisaton
ABSTRACT Each of us has been listening to sound shaped by our unique pinnae, head and torso throughout life. This personal filtering of sound is a large determinant of what creates a sensation of naturalness, transparency, and immersion in the acoustic environment. Along with interaural level and time differences, the spectral cues provided by our...
An innovative RIE with microphone in the ear lets users “hear with their own ears”
The Receiver-In-Ear style of hearing aids has overtaken the hearing aid market. But the Resound ONETM RIE hearing aid has both the microphone and the receiver in the ear.
Columns
Issues in Accessibility
In this edition of Issues in Accessibility, Janine Verge interviews Dr. Hugh J Haley, a psychologist who shares his personal experience living with hearing loss and the challenges and barriers he has encountered.
From the Labs to the Clinics
Bob Harrison muses about how the gap between audiological science and clinical audiology has not narrowed as much as he would have liked during his (45 year) career.
Noisy Notes
This column points out the difference between the perception of occupational noise and its actual measurement. This is important clinically where we perform a case history. Asking if the client’s work environment is noisy, probably will provide little or no information, especially if they say no.
The Way I Hear It
As we crawl our way through this global pandemic, Gael understands the need for masks. But that doesn’t mean she has to like them.
Audiology in the Classrooms
This issue’s Audiology in the Classrooms is by Dr. Krista Yuskow of the Edmonton Public Schools as an educational audiologist. Of her many interests Krista focuses on the relationship between hearing loss and self-determination.
CAA News
CAA News September 2020 - CAA AGM, CAA Conference and Exhibition Cancellation 2020, Canadian Entry-To-Practice Exam for Audiology
Industry News
Industry News September 2020 -
Michelle Ummels Leaving Widex,
Rob Walesa GM of Widex, New name for the School of Human Communication Disorders, Ontario Resume Infant Hearing Checks