• Ms. Geetanjali Singh has completed her Diploma & Degree in the education of the Hearing Impairment (India)
• Diploma in Child development & Health education (India)
• Masters in Linguistic education (India)
• Auditory verbal practice: Early Intervention continue.
• Attended CRC Workshop at Melbourne (Australia) on October 2008.
• The Harmony Approach: HiRes120 Device Fitting Strategy – Bionics Currently she is pursuing her studies in Audiology & speech pathology.

Service

Audiological assessment

The purpose of audiological assessment is to quantify and qualify hearing in terms of the degree of hearing loss, the type of hearing loss and the configuration of the hearing loss.

Audiological evaluation is also carried out for purposes of monitoring an already identified hearing loss. Once a particular hearing loss has been identified, a treatment and management plan is put into place. The plan may include medical or surgical intervention, prescription of personal hearing aids, prescription/provision of assistive listening devices, skills development through aural (audiologic) habilitation/rehabilitation, or simply monitoring of the condition through periodic assessment.

An audiologic evaluation is sometimes thought of as "just a hearing test," but more than "just" the ability to hear sounds is involved. The audiologic evaluation consists of a battery of tests, each providing specific standalone information. Yet, the tests complement one another. The audiologic evaluation consists of several different components.

The assessment includes:

• A short interview with our trained staff # case history
• A visual examination of the ear canal and eardrum
• Pure tone audiometry (audiogram), informal hearing tests for infants, BSERA, ASSR, Impedence audiometry.
• Hearing aid trial & fitting, ear mould, complete cochlear implant evaluation.
• Speech perception test.

From these results, our audiologist will be able to determine the following:

• Type of hearing loss
• Degree of hearing loss
• Whether the condition is medically treatable or not
• A recommendation of the most suitable solution

Hearing aids & accessories

Most people need to wear a hearing aid when they suffer from a hearing loss. Hearing aid is an electronic device that picks up and amplifies the sound to make it louder so that a person with hearing loss can listen, communicate and participate more fully in daily activities in the both quiet and noisy situations.

Hearing aid components:

• One or more microphones to gather sounds and convert it to electrical impulses
• An amplifier to increase the strength of the impulses
• The receiver to transform electrical impulses back into sound waves and redirect them into the ear of the wearer.
• A battery to supply the energy source.

Hearing aids are available in variety of styles wherein they differ from their size, placement and degree to which they amplify and also the different technology they offer.

Style of hearing aid can be

• Body warn where the hearing aid is a bit bulky
• Behind the ear (BTE) wherein the instrument rests behind the ear and is attached to a custom made hearing aid
• In the ear (ITE) where the device is custom made hearing aid.
• In the canal (ITC) where they fit only in the outer portion of the ear canal.
• Completely in the canal (CIC) which is the smallest device available and is cosmetically desirable because it fits deeply in the canal and takes advantages of the ears natural resonance and shape.

Technology of the hearing aid depends on the electronics used. We have two terms "Analog" and "Digital" which refer to how a hearing instrument’s amplifier processes the sound.

Analog hearing aids convert sound waves into electrical signals which are amplified by making the continuous sound waves larger. They can be conventional or programmable.

Digital hearing aids convert sound waves into numerical course similar to the binary code of a computer before amplifying them. Because the code also includes information about a sounds pitch or loudness, the aid can be specially programmed to amplify some frequencies more than others.

A hearing test is the only way for you to know what hearing aid is best for your severity and type of hearing loss. The appropriate style of the hearing aid is dependent on the audiogram, shape and size of the canal, dexterity and of course, cost as hearing aids can be expensive! The rates vary from Rs.1000 to Rs. 4000/- for a body worn model and Rs. 4000 to Rs. 1,50,000/- for an invisible digital multichannel model.