LM217 - Beyond the Classroom: Amplification Considerations in Children with Auditory Processing Disorders

Abstract:
School accommodations, including hearing assistive technology, are at the forefront of recommendations for school-aged children with auditory processing disorders (APD). While these interventions are beneficial in the classroom, some children continue to struggle with support in place. Further, these solutions do not offer assistance to children outside of the educational setting. We explore the subjective and objective benefits of binaural amplification for those children who continue to struggle with APD by discussing candidacy rationale, fitting strategies, validation measurements used, and descriptive case studies.

Rationale:
Accommodations in the classroom, including hearing assistive technology, are commonly recommended for children with auditory processing disorders (APD). While these interventions are beneficial for education, some children continue to struggle with support in place. Further, these solutions do not offer assistance to children outside of the educational setting. A small sample of children diagnosed with APD at our pediatric hospital clinic have been fitted with binaural amplification, demonstrating significant objective and subjective benefits. This pattern sparked interest among our clinicians to investigate which children may benefit most from this intervention and how to fit them most appropriately. Research has indicated that individuals with auditory processing benefit from amplification devices such as ear-level remote microphone systems. There are no published or standard guidelines for the fitting of amplification for children with APD, although research exists regarding the use of amplification for children with minimal peripheral hearing loss. We will present our current practices and rationale for determining amplification candidacy and follow-up management for children with APD. We will provide several case studies outlining the unique situations that arise with APD and amplification.

Design:
A comprehensive chart review was completed to gather data on a small group of children who had been diagnosed with auditory processing disorder and were subsequently fit with amplification. We will summarize the fitting data, validation measure outcomes, and diagnostic profiles of these individuals. Deidentified case studies will be presented to demonstrate the clinician rationale for the recommendation for or against amplification and the current practices used at this pediatric hospital.

Results/

Conclusions: ,
Data analysis is ongoing and is anticipated to be complete by February 2024. We hypothesize that patients do perceive benefit from their hearing aids and that these subjective reports are better reflected in certain validation measures, such as patient reporting forms, than others. Additionally, we hypothesize that certain individuals may be better candidates than others depending on reported difficulties, such as speech-in-noise.