Educational Audiologist

Every year, kids across America partake in a back-to-school ritual that includes shopping for new clothes, buying new school supplies, getting their hair cut, posing for school pictures and — like it or not — getting their hearing and vision tested to make sure they can see and hear their teacher’s lessons.

When you’re an Educational Audiologist, you’re the person who conducts students’ annual hearing screenings, charged with assessing children’s hearing in order to identify, diagnose, and treat educationally significant hearing loss. Typically employed by school districts, Educational Audiologists conduct such screenings at schools throughout their community in collaboration with School Nurses, Teachers, and parents, sharing screening results with them so they can make decisions about students, some of whom might need to get hearing aids, for instance, or be enrolled in special deaf/hard-of-hearing programs.

Of course, annual screenings are only one of many items on your to-do list. Other items as an Educational Audiologist include: consulting on accommodations for hearing-impaired students; ordering and distributing hearing aids, or assistive listening devices (ADLs); educating parents and Teachers about the impact of hearing loss on classroom learning; evaluating classroom environments for noise levels; referring parents and students to community-based Audiologists; consulting with school districts on the purchase and installation of classroom amplification technologies; and assisting Special Education Teachers with deaf and hearing-impaired students.

Because kids can’t learn if they can’t hear, you find the lost remote control and turn the world’s volume up so they can hear it (although they might want to press “mute” again when they find out what they’ve been missing is algebra!).