Educational Assessment

In 2014, as the British Academy of Audiology began the process of developing a greater recognition of Educational Audiologists which eventually led to their professional registration, the chair of the British Association of Educational Audiologists was invited to present to the conference of the British Academy of Audiology. His presentation highlighted the seven role areas of the Educational Audiologist including hearing aid management and educational assessments. These topics were representative of the expertise on two sides of the health and education bridge - one (hearing aids) very familiar to the audiologist conference listeners and another (educational assessments) very familiar to educational audiologists who could help link the information to clinical judgements about hearing aids. 

Some educational assessments evaluate beyond academic ability and may overlap with audiological assessments in some cases, such as the incidence of tinnitus in children and teenagers.  The British Association of Audiology Practice guidance includes classroom management strategies for this condition which may be an area on which an Educational Audiologist can lead.  See Kentish R, Benton C, Kennedy V, Munro C, Phillips J, Rogers C, Rosenberg J, Salvage S. (2015) Tinnitus in Children, Practice Guidance.

Dr Imran Mulla, Audiology Lead in Education, used educational assessments to co-research (Mayer et al 2016) notions of reading and writing in children with cochlear implants, finding ‘good use of their technology, and much stronger outcomes in vocabulary and reading than evidenced in the deaf population prior to implantation’.

Indeed, audiologists on the literacy team seem a natural fit according to English and Freesen (2012) who conducted a pilot project to increase audiologists’ competency in phonological awareness and the hearing-listening-reading relationship.