Audiologists - What are They?

Theresa Pitt, Paediatric Audiological Scientist, National Rehabilitation Board South-East Ireland.

Audiology is a small niche profession occupying the middle "paramedical" ground between medical, scientific and educational areas. Thus it is rather a mixed profession, with all sorts of people reaching it, sometimes by very curious routes. It is one of the few areas where there is a relative shortage of trained people.

Audiology is essentially concerned with hearing and balance, both in diagnostic assessment, and rehabilitation roles. As there is a lot of technical equipment involved, some people who do research, or develop equipment and hearing aids are very much from Physics and Electronic Engineering backgrounds (in fact, I have an M.Sc. in Experimental Physics). Others derive from nursing and medical back- grounds - generally with a Public Health perspective to their thinking - or "side-step" froin Ear, Nose aud Throat Departments.

Occasionally, young people choose to do a 2 year technical training equivalent to M.T.O. training. the training elements of which have to be undertaken outside Ireland (although in Ireland, fewer such employment grades are available than in equivalent UK situations), and it is possible to upgrade this qualification to an M.Sc. with further study - again, based in the UK!!

Still others derive from Educational or Speech and Language Therapy backgrounds - particularly amongst those who work primarily with young children. I would largely fit into this last category, having originally been a Teacher of the Deaf, but with a specific interest in technology - I taught Maths and Computer Studjes until about 9 years ago, and have continued to use these skills in a Research capacity. Such people generally have a postgraduate training in Audiology as well.

Now I do mostly diagnostic assessment of children under 8 in a "bridging capacity" between community based screening services for hearing impairment and hospital based E.N.T. or other diagnostic audiology services. In addition, the NRB, for which I work, are charged with hearing aid provision for all school-going children who require them, and thus we also have a specific role in guiding and helping parents, teachers, other professionals and children to understand this particular disability, and in trying to promote better services for them. In fact, however, there are very few paediatric audiology people, (almost none working in hospital) and considerable confusion exists about professional titles and roles in Audiology, which has tended to weaken the identity of what is already a very small profession. In many ways, the profession is similar to Ophthalmology, but unfortunately, in Audiology there seems to be a certain amount of "fuzziness" in terms of support for Audiological equipment from the commercial sector This adds to the problem of identification of various roles in the maintenance and management of equipment.

Most people in Audiology enjoy working with people rather than equipment - I think. Because so much of the assessment work involves interpersonal skills these are extremely important to people at the clinical workface. In many ways, however, we could as a group identify much more closely with Biomedical Engineering. The inclusion of "medical" in this term may not be the best way of promoting a social model of hearing loss as a disability - which is undoubtedly more appropriate for something which so vitally influences communication.