Candidacy and Device Options: Personal Amplification Systems for School-Aged Children

Abstract

Over the past 10 to 15 years, advances in personal hearing technology have allowed for a remarkable improvement in speech, language, auditory, and academic outcomes for children with all degrees of hearing loss. With contemporary technology, pediatric and educational audiologists should be able to achieve the stated goal in the American Academy of Audiology Pediatric Amplification Guideline to provide a signal that makes low-, moderate-, and high-level sounds audible and comfortable for the child while also providing a high sound quality across a variety of listening environments. This article discusses various types of personal hearing technology available for school-aged children including digital hearing aids, cochlear implants, bone-anchored hearing aids, and personal frequency-modulated devices. Candidacy guidelines will be discussed for each device, and device-specific features, such as signal-processing characteristics, that are beneficial for school-aged children will be addressed. Finally, case studies will be provided to demonstrate the decision-making process involved in selecting personal hearing technology for children with hearing loss.