SOMERSET, NJ October 24 -- Nearly 200 hearing care professionals from hospital, educational and private practice settings participated in the 2013 Oticon Pediatrics Conference, held in Stone Mountain, Georgia. The two-day knowledge-sharing event focused on the new advances in pediatric audiology that empower practitioners to meet children’s needs at every stage of development. Researchers and clinicians representing leading centers of excellence in pediatric audiology shared the newest research, technology and practices in pediatric audiology to provide the best possible auditory and cognitive development for children with hearing loss.
“Our Pediatric Audiological Mission is to help hearing care professionals create a better future for every child with hearing loss,” says Laura Shiplett, AuD, Manager, Oticon Pediatrics. “Professional gatherings, such as our annual conference, enable us to provide pediatric practitioners with new knowledge they can utilize to assist children in realizing their full potential. Over the course of the weekend, we encourage participants to explore new technologies and tools that will enhance their ability to guide patients and parents through the everyday practicalities that sometimes stand in the way of the most beneficial use of amplification.”
This year’s conference highlights included a pair of presentations on the assessment, selection and verification/validation of pediatric amplification by Ryan McCreery, PhD, Director of Audiology at Boys Town National Research Hospital. Andrea Pittman, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Speech and Hearing Science at Arizona State University and Director of the Pediatric Amplification Laboratory presented new research on the benefits of digital noise reduction for children and how varying the time constants of amplitude compression can affect the abilities of children and adults with hearing loss to manage complex listening environments. Shane Moodie, MClSc, from Western University, Ontario, Canada, reviewed the applications and limitations of real-ear to-coupler differences in hearing assessment and instrument selection and verification, and shared his recent work on evaluating a new integrated hearing aid/probe mic system.
The conference also introduced participants to Oticon Sensei, a new family of premium pediatric hearing instruments built on Oticon’s powerful and efficient Inium wireless processor. The new Sensei features an array of audiological features not previously available in a pediatric solution, all designed to deliver optimized speech understanding in the changing sound environments that children encounter throughout their day.
A series of workshops gave participants hands-on experience with Sensei’s intuitive EasyRECD™, a tool that takes the complexity out of assessing individual ear acoustics, ensuring accurate amplification for the on-going processes of fitting Sensei to accommodate growing young ear canals. Conference participants were also given the opportunity to learn about Sensei through case studies from three clinicians who participated in a pre-release field trial of Sensei.
“Developing hearing technology where pediatrics is prioritized from the start and where the requirements of the child with hearing loss are always at the forefront is an enormous undertaking,” says Shiplett. “But when it is done well, we are able to introduce revolutionary solutions like Oticon Safari and now the new Sensei family that stand up to practitioner expectations and meet the needs of patients from infancy through the teen years.“
For more information on Oticon Pediatrics and Oticon Sensei, visit oticonusa.com or the Oticon Expo Page on AudiologyOnline.
