Volume 27 Issue 7

HOH-LD-News
Vol. 27, Issue 7
May 13, 2006

Copyright (C) 2006 Hearing Loss Web. All rights reserved.

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Table of Contents
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- Article 1: No referral for many kids who fail hearing tests

- Article 2: Chronic, Moderate Tinnitus Interferes with Cognitive Abilities

- Article 3: Engineers try to solve playground cochlear implant problem

- Article 4: Short Takes

Our advertisers make it possible for us to provide HOH-LD-News as a free service. Please let them know you appreciate their support, and please mention that you saw their message in HOH-LD-News.

- Advertisers in this Issue
First Premium Placement:
Mother's Day Specials at Sound Clarity
Second Premium Placement:
New SoundPlus TV Listening Devices at Harris Communications
Third Premium Placement:
IHHD Online Educational Opportunities
Classified Section:
Two online stores, one captioning company, and one employment opportunity

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Contact information and disclaimers are at the end of this newsletter.
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- Article 1: No referral for many kids who fail hearing tests
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Editor: While we're all busy patting ourselves on the back for the progress we've made in providing universal newborn hearing screening, we've been oblivious to the fact that many kids who fail hearing tests are not being referred for follow up. This news release from the St. Louis University School of Medicine tells the story!

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Pediatricians are not referring more than half of the children who fail hearing screenings for further tests, according to new research by a Saint Louis University physician. The study was published in the October issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

"Doctors are doing tests that they're ignoring," says Donna R. Halloran, M.D., assistant professor of pediatrics at Saint Louis University School of Medicine, and a study author.

"Stop doing the test if you are not going to pay attention to it. Or, if you are going to do the test, pay attention to the results."

Halloran and her colleagues evaluated hearing screening results during 1,061 routine doctors' visits at three academic and five private practices in Alabama. They found that 10 percent of the children failed a hearing screening, which means that they missed reacting to at least one frequency sounded in either ear at the 20-decibel level. Of those children who failed the test, 59 percent received no further evaluation.

"My biggest problem is it's such a waste of money," says Halloran, who also is a SLUCare pediatrician at SSM Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital. "It surprises me that in a litigious society we're ignoring screening results."

About 3 percent of the population has hearing impairment, Halloran says, which means the routine hearing screening picks up false positives.

However, if more than half of those who fail hearing screenings are not referred for in-depth evaluation by an audiologist, some children who have hearing problems might not get the help they need.

"At 4 years, they'll start to have some language delays that some people argue are not reversible," Halloran says. "A mild speech delay will be overlooked until they get into kindergarten. And even with severe hearing loss, huge improvements can be made with hearing aids."

While the study was conducted between 1998 and 2000, in 2003 the American Academy of Pediatrics revised its standards of hearing loss upwards - to 25 decibels, Halloran says. That's the equivalent, she says, to having 20:30 vision instead of 20:20, and likely fewer children would fail that screening.

However, the research brings a new question to light: How do doctors decide what to do when young patients have an abnormal screening result?

"The findings from this study are worrisome because physicians took no further action in more than 50 percent of the children who failed the hearing screening," Halloran says.

"Further evaluation or intervention must take place to allow children with possible hearing impairment to benefit from screening practices. Screening that does not result in action for those failing the screening wastes resources and fails to initiate necessary intervention for hearing loss."

Established in 1836, Saint Louis University School of Medicine has the distinction of awarding the first M.D. degree west of the Mississippi River. Saint Louis University School of Medicine is a pioneer in geriatric medicine, organ transplantation, chronic disease prevention, cardiovascular disease, neurosciences and vaccine research, among others. The School of Medicine trains physicians and biomedical scientists, conducts medical research, and provides health services on a local, national and international level.

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New SoundPlus TV Listening Devices at Harris Communications
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Two new SoundPlus TV listening devices are now available from Harris Communications. The WIR238 features a headset receiver with angled ear couplings for comfort and an automatic on/off switch to save on batteries.

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- Article 2: Chronic, Moderate Tinnitus Interferes with Cognitive Abilities
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Editor: A recent study concludes that people with chronic, moderate tinnitus don't perform as well on some tests of cognitive function as people without tinnitus. Here's the report.

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Study Reports Impact on Selective Attention, Long-Term Memory. Individuals with chronic, moderate tinnitus do more poorly on demanding working memory and attention tests than those without tinnitus, according to a recent study.

Individuals with chronic, moderate tinnitus do more poorly on demanding working memory and attention tests than those without tinnitus, according to a recent study. However, on less complex tasks, no significant differences were found, suggesting that tinnitus has no effect on tasks that involve more involuntary, automatic responses.

"Tinnitus and Its Effect on Working Memory and Attention," appears in the just released Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. The study adds to the growing body of research on the relationship between tinnitus and cognition, demonstrating an association between tinnitus and reduced cognitive function. The research has important implications for helping people with tinnitus approach new or difficult tasks that require strategic and conscious control.

"We wanted to learn more about the ways in which chronic tinnitus disrupts cognitive performance," said Susan Rossiter, a former research Masters student at the MARCS Auditory Laboratories and University of Western Sydney, South Penrith, New South Wales, Australia. "Our goal is to use this knowledge to develop management strategies that will help minimize this disruption."

"Ms. Rossiter's research project was our first foray into tinnitus," said fellow researcher and Associate Professor Catherine Stevens of the MARCS Auditory Laboratories. She added, "Our most recent research has also investigated other important variables such as depression and hearing loss."

Dr. Gary Walker, also of the MARCS Auditory Laboratories added, "Our ultimate goal is to use this knowledge to develop management strategies that will help minimize disruption."

Thirty-eight people participated as subjects. Nineteen, who were ages 34-63 years, came from English-speaking backgrounds, and had constant, moderate to severe tinnitus made up the experimental group. The control group also had 19 participants. They matched individuals in the experimental group by age, educational level, occupation, and verbal IQ.

Tinnitus is the perception of sound in the absence of auditory stimulation. Described as a "ringing in the ears" or "buzzing" or "whooshing" sound, it can be temporary, intermittent, or permanent. Although its exact cause is often unknown, tinnitus can be a symptom of hearing loss, allergies, or exposure to loud noise or ototoxic medicines. Past research has shown that it can be accompanied by anxiety, insomnia, problems with auditory perception, and poor general and mental health.

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You're Career Oriented... Career Driven...and Hard of Hearing or Deaf
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The Institute for Persons Who Are Hard of Hearing or Deaf (IHHD) is a nonprofit Congressionally-funded agency dedicated to facilitating workplace and career advancement for aspiring professionals like you.

IHHD provides important online educational opportunities to share experiences, access top professional leaders, and develop crucial communication and business skills. Choose from a number of programs that cover all aspects of career growth - from starting a business to leadership and advocacy development.

These month-long courses are delivered online using National University's acclaimed state-of-the-art interactive learning system to provide optimal accessibility. Visit: http://cha.nu.edu/ec/formihhd-careerdev.html?ypd002
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- Article 3: Engineers try to solve playground cochlear implant problem
By Alison Drain
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Editor: Static electricity and electronic devices don't get along well. For example, static electricity has the potential to zap a cochlear implant processor. And depending on the material a playground slide is constructed from, the slide can produce a LOT of static electricity. See where this is going?

Here's the news release from Washington University in St. Louis.

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For some deaf children, a plastic slide is a more formidable foe than the school wedgie-giver. Static electricity buildup from sliding down a plastic slide - instant summertime fun for the hearing set - can temporarily silence the world to cochlear implantees.

Robert Morley, D.Sc., associate professor of electrical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, and his colleague Ed Richter, have tested static electricity buildup on sliding children to quantify the sparks. Thanks to some publicity and increased awareness, their research has inspired the St. Louis County Parks and Recreation Department to consider the problem, and an anti-static coating company to try to solve it.

Cochlear implants, often referred to as bionic ears, help provide a sense of sound to a profoundly deaf or severely hard-of-hearing person. The costly surgical procedure invites a doctor to wind an array of up to 22 electrodes through a diseased cochlea, the part of the inner ear that sends electrical impulses to the brain. An externally-worn speech processor filters sound, selecting and prioritizing tonal frequencies specifically for its wearer, and sends it to a magnetic transmitter behind the external ear. The internal device, then, perceives the processed sounds after the transmitter sends them by electromagnetic induction. The catch? Once the device is implanted in the cochlea, the patient submits to total hearing loss when their unit is switched off or malfunctioning.

The speech processors aren't zap-proof. Their smarts can scramble if a wearer removes her sweater too fast or slides down a high-voltage-generating plastic slide. When a child discharges the electricity by touching something-like a fellow slider - the processor temporarily loses function. Restoring hearing requires an inconvenient visit to an audiologist to have the unit reprogrammed.

"The kids who have cochlear implants are told that if they want to go to the playground and go down the plastic slides like the other kids, they have to take off their speech processors," Morley explained. "So then, of course, they are at a disadvantage on the playground because they can't hear."

Testing humid St. Louis, dry Tucson

Morley, who learned static electricity testing as a graduate student while running companies from his basement, developed a plan to test slides in humid Saint Louis and a much drier Tucson. He set out to quantify static buildup on different clothing materials, with different kids and slide techniques, on slides with different manufacturers and in different climates. His project was sponsored by the U.S. Government Access Board.

"So we bought some clothes, we got some measurement equipment to measure static electricity, and we used a laptop that we had," Morley said. "This was a very low budget - $25,000 - which, for Washington University research, is a drop in the bucket."

Low-budget doesn't have to mean low-impact. Robert Morley and his colleague, Ed Richter set two daughters apiece to do some work on local playgrounds - and procured some interesting results. The girls slid for science, testing variable clothing and St. Louis slides; their dads measured voltages the girls discharged upon landing. Richter's brother performed the same tests in Tucson, where dry air encourages static electricity buildup.

Parents can't take steps to remediate the problem, Morley found. He found no correlation between voltage and polyester, cotton, or nylon. Different children and different slide techniques gave the same results.

Morley explained his plotted data: "One thing of interest here is, out in Tucson, at low humidity, we see some final voltages for slides at one park. On the same day, Richter's brother got really high voltages at another park." All plastic slides are not created equal. Humidity, a known static electricity deterrent, remains the most important factor in voltage buildup. But Morley and Richter found that a manufacturer's materials choices could affect the amount of static electricity on sliders in arid climates by a factor of three.

As a result of this research, people began to acknowledge the problem. One St. Louis County Parks and Recreation employee probed Morley for his slide replacement project at Faust Park. One local company, which manufactures anti-static coating for fighter jets, contacted Morley after hearing the issue. The company thinks their coating could be applied as a durable, inexpensive polymer that could withstand wear over a plastic slide's lifetime.

"That would be the best outcome of this project - that we solve the problem instead of just quantify it," Morley said.

St. Louis is home to four deaf schools including Washington University's Central Institute for the Deaf, which draws students from as far away as Hawaii, Mauritius, and Pakistan. Nearly 100,000 people worldwide have restored functional hearing because of their cochlear implants. About half of those people are children.

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- Article 4: Short Takes
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Editor: Here are our picks of some additional stories that you may find interesting. For more, please point your browser to:
http://www.hearinglossweb.com/news/curr.htm

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Is Deaf University President not 'deaf enough'?

[The board of trustees' unanimous selection for a new university president, the current provost Jane] Fernandes, who is hearing impaired, is able to speak and didn't learn sign language until the age of 23. She did not attend Gallaudet, and earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of Iowa. She also has a husband and children who have no hearing problems. On this campus, where debates focus on whether there are enough college employees who are deaf or whether sign language is emphasized enough over reading lips, Fernandes says some do not consider her to be "deaf enough. "

http://www.abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=1947073&page=1

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Drinking red wine may help prevent deafness

Age-related deafness, and hearing loss caused by loud noise, may be reduced by the antioxidants in red wine, green tea and aspirin, it was claimed yesterday. The compounds they contain could help protect the delicate hairs of the inner ear that are vital to hearing, new research suggests. Destructive chemical agents called oxygen-free radicals, produced by normal cellular processes and in response to loud noise and exposure to powerful antibiotics, can damage the hairs. But antioxidants such as resveratrol, found in red wine and green tea, and salicylate, the active ingredient in aspirin, should be able to neutralise them.

http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=702752006

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Hearing aids to be paid for by Medicaid under budget agreement

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - The state will pay for hearing aids for poor people under the Medicaid program with an agreement reached by legislative budget writers as lawmakers try to close out their differences on how to spend state money in the coming year. The House and Senate continued budget negotiations Monday after a week of offers and counter offers, trying to work out differences between the spending plans that each chamber has passed. The House agreed to a Senate proposal to spend about $900,000 in state money to cover hearing aids, something the Legislature cut spending for a few years ago when times were tight.

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/local/14417393.htm

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- Classifieds
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Two online stores, one captioning company, and one employment opportunity appear in this issue. (Ads appear after this brief table of contents.)

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Sawyer Court Reporting
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Employment Opportunity
Various Opportunities
GLAD
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Sawyer Court Reporting
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Employment Opportunity
Various Opportunities
GLAD
Various Southern California Locations
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GLAD is an Affirmative Action Employer with equal opportunity for men, women and people with disabilities. For more information on the following positions, please go to: www.gladinc.org. The status of all positions is: Regular, Full-time, Non-Exempt, Full Fringe Benefits unless otherwise noted. All positions are open until filled.

* Community Advocate- Los Angeles
* Job Developer/Interpreter - Norwalk
* LIFESIGNS Director - Los Angeles
* LIFESIGNS Clerk- Los Angeles
* Network IT Administrator - Los Angeles

If interested for any of these positions then please submit resume and application to:

Jeff Fetterman
Human Resources Specialist
Greater Los Angeles Agency on Deafness, Inc.
2222 Laverna Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90041
V/TDD: (323) 550-4207
Fax #: (323)550-4204
E-mail: jfetterman@gladinc.org

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