Hearing assessment techniques, and counseling for the pediatric population are different from those used on adults. Parents will often not have any prior knowledge of how their child's hearing will be assessed. Therefore, many questions may pertain to the mechanics of the evaluation. Audiologists may find the questions take away some of their counseling time and they have less time to discuss the diagnosis and prognosis of the child. The purpose of this study was to determine if a computer program developed with information about pediatric evaluations could be used to educate individuals about this process. Twenty subjects were involved with this study. Eighteen volunteers were attending Portland State University, and two were volunteers from the general population. Ten subjects were selected to come to Portland State University to view a computer program about pediatric hearing evaluations. The other ten were part of the control group and did not view the computer program. Immediately following each subject answered the questionnaire. The questions on the questionnaire covered information about: otoscopy, behavioral observation audiometry, visual reinforcement audiology, play audiometry, tympanometry and speech testing. The results were tabulated and percentages calculated. The results of this study indicated that, in general, the computer program did educate the participants about pediatric evaluations. In some areas such as tympanometry, otoscopy, and testing procedures the computer program was extremely strong. The information obtained in this study would indicate that a computer program might be used to educate parents about the techniques used in a pediatric evaluation prior to their child's appointment. In some areas such as the information regarding speech testing, and some questions relating to different behavioral techniques, there appears to be a need for further development and expansion, so the parents will be able to retain the information in these areas.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:pdx.edu/oai:pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu:open_access_etds-6029 |
| Date | 20 May 1996 |
| Creators | Aleskus, Jeanne E. |
| Publisher | PDXScholar |
| Source Sets | Portland State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Dissertations and Theses |
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