This challenging educational audiology practicum provides opportunities for students to be part of a multidisciplinary team that works cooperatively to identify and habilitate communication disorders. Additional practical experience is gained in educational planning, functional assessments of auditory capabilities and teacher inservicing. Programmable and digital signal processing instruments are routinely dispensed in this state of the art facility. The Adult Hearing Clinic is also the home of the very busy Hearing Aid Bank a thirty-year old program that provides hearing aids for the indigent population of Pima County. Practical experience is gained in the implementation of a test battery that includes behavioralaudiological evaluations, acoustic immittance testing, evoked otoacoustic emissions testing and functional assessment of observed auditory behaviors.
Students also learn behavior management techniques.
Clinic faculty provide audiological services to Native American children and adults on the Tohono O'Odham Indian Reservation 10 miles south of Tucson. Comprehensive audiological evaluations are provided for inpatients and outpatients of all ages. In addition, complete hearing aid services are performed, including the dispensing of programmable and digital signal processing instruments. Our students are often selected by the Tucson VAMC to complete paid or unpaid internships in their busy audiology department. Students gain practical experience providing audiological services, including hearing aid selection and fitting, with an adult population.