Measuring the hearing of those with little or no speech

Bryce Huddleston is ready to be tested for suspected hearing loss by Kyra Beaver, an audiologist with the KU Schiefelbusch Clinic for Speech, Language and Hearing. KU graduate student Carol Cummings has trained Bryce to push the red button when he hears a tone using a software program developed by Life Span Institute at Parsons Senior Scientists Kate Saunders (standing) and Dean Williams.

Even though many children with developmental disabilities are getting $90,000 per ear cochlear implants, audiologists are having trouble adjusting them. Enter Kate Saunders and Dean Williams, behavioral scientists with decades of experience studying learning difficulties of people with intellectual disability. Solution: develop a technology to train children to take a hearing test. Those would be the kids who, because of autism, intellectual or developmental disability, have difficulty following spoken instructions and communicating to audiologists that they hear tones during a hearing test. It can take multiple teaching sessions to learn this skill—too much time for the clinic setting.

The researchers have developed and are testing a software program designed to enable teachers, therapists and paraprofessionals to shape a child’s behavior to respond to audio tones.

The program records everything that occurs during a teaching session, including whether the child presses a button during tone presentations and does not press the button when the tone is off.

“If a child responds when there is a tone, the program signals the trainer to deliver a reinforcer,” explained Williams. “The program can even operate toys—like a jumping dog—but usually, rewards are enthusiastic praise, treats or tokens.”

A large percentage of people with profound hearing loss also have a second or third disability, said Williams. “The most common of those are intellectual disability or autism.”

Although enabling children to benefit from expensive cochlear implants helped persuade the U.S. Department of Education to fund the development of the prototype, in practice, said Saunders, there are many more children who simply need a valid assessment of their hearing.

“This technology is based on shaping and reinforcement procedures to teach children what to do during a hearing assessment,” said Saunders. “If a loss is detected and remediated, that opens up the path to communication—and that’s a game changer.”

Study collaborators: Yusuke Hayashi, assistant research professor and project coordinator (now assistant professor of psychology, Penn State-Hazelton); Tiffany Johnson, associate professor of hearing and speech, KU Medical Center, and Carol Cummings, graduate research assistant, applied behavioral sciences.

Funding: U.S. Department of Education