Q: What's a typical workday like for you?
A: The way to test children's hearing depends on their developmental ability. With infants, I use a computerized test to structurally assess the hearing portion of the ear; from 6 months to about 2 1/2 years, they sit on a parent's lap in the sound booth and look toward the sources of sounds; from 2 1/2 to age 6, they wear headphones and we play games to test their hearing; at age 6, they can raise their hands or push a button to indicate what they've heard. I also do sedated hearing tests for children who cannot indicate how they're hearing. And I work with patients who have hearing loss and help families to choose hearing aids.
Q: How does your role fit into the bigger health care picture?
A: If a child has a hearing loss, other areas of their development may be affected, particularly speech and language development. Other medical diagnoses also require testing of hearing, including cancer, premature birth, genetic history and neurological diagnoses.
Q: Who do you interact with during the course of the day?
A: I interact with children and their parents, pediatricians and other physicians; school audiologists; nursing staff; and speech therapists.
Q: Why did you become an audiologist?
A: I had changed my mind about my original major in college. My roommate recommended an Introduction to Communication Disorders class and I learned about audiology there.
Q: What do you like about your work?
A: I love that every day is different. With pediatrics, you never know what you're going to encounter. I like being part of the team and being able to help children who have a hearing loss. It's a very fulfilling and rewarding career.
