Basics of Audiology: Vibrations to Sounds

by Jerry L Cranford

Overview

This book was developed from Dr. Cranford's extensive experience teaching audiology to speechlanguage pathology students. Although there are multiple, established introductory texts in audiology, this text is uniquely geared to students who certainly are studying Speech-Language Pathology. This text includes all the necessary audiological principles needed for any SLP student to become competent in test assessment and the diagnosis of hearing disorders. Mastery of this text will enable the future clinician practice in a wider patient base. In addition to being useful in undergraduate training programs as a primary or supplementary text, the book will also be valuable for SLPs who have been in the trenches for a number of years and feel they need to have their knowledge of audiology refreshed or updated. Because the author has focused on using nontechnical or layman's terminology in explaining the various scientific and clinical concepts/principles in this field, he also believes that parents, relatives, or significant others of hearing impaired patients will also find this book useful for understanding the problems experienced by their loved ones.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781597561808
Publisher:	Plural Pub Inc
Publication date:	03/01/2007
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	132
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.20(d)

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Linda Jacobs-Condit, AuD, CCC-A(George Washington University)
Description: This basic primer of audiology takes readers from acoustics to anatomy to the clinical evaluation process — hearing testing, middle ear assessments, electrophysiological tests and medical neuroimaging. Illustrations provide a very clear view of the anatomy of the ear.
Purpose: The book is intended to provide basic introductory information for those students entering speech-language pathology programs who had limited undergraduate coursework in the field of audiology and its basic science precursors. While this might be a worthwhile goal, some of the chapters are written at too basic and cursory a level — some are only 2-3 pages in length.
Audience: The author is professor of audiology and hearing science in the Department of Communication Disorders at LSU Health Sciences Center. He holds a PhD in experimental psychology, NIH postdoctoral fellow in neurosciences, and a PhD in audiology.
Features: The first section begins with the scientific background for audiology, which includes a chapter on acoustics/physics of sound that uses black-and-white illustrations of simple and complex sound waves. Also covered in this section are functional anatomy of the auditory nervous system and the roles of the various parts of the auditory system. The black-and-white illustrations provide very good detail of the parts of the ear. The second part of the book provides cursory information on the field of audiology in general, and takes the reader through the evaluation process, from case history to audiologic testing to middle ear evaluation to electrophysiological measures. Audiograms are included that describe and compare the differences between normal hearing, conductive loss, sensori-neural losses that might be due to presbycusis versus noise exposure. Some chapters include references and suggestions for additional reading, while others include only suggestions for further reading.
Assessment: This book may well serve a role as a basic introductory primer, but it should not be the sole book assigned — it is too basic.

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