Welcome to the Audiology Tutorial
This tutorial is designed to educate users on both the field of audiology and the set of diagnostic tools used daily to assess hearing loss.
Babies develop speech and communication abilities starting at birth. They learn by observing and listening to the people, sights, and sounds around them. When a baby experiences hearing loss, many environmental cues go unnoticed, resulting in significant speech and developmental delays.
Each year in the United States 2 to 3 out of every 1,000 children are born deaf or hard-of hearing. The cause of hearing loss is often unknown and hearing loss can go unnoticed for years. Approximately 14.9 percent of US children (age 6-19) suffer from decreased hearing and each year 4,000 new cases of sudden deafness are diagnosed in the United States.
Tests to assess a child’s hearing can be broadly characterized as physiologic or behavioral. The pure-tone audiogram, a behavioral measure, is considered to be the only true measure of hearing in the global sense and therefore is the gold standard in audiologic evaluations. To learn more about hearing loss and diagnostic audiology please continue to explore the tutorial by clicking on a link below.
