Faculty of Humanities
School of Social Sciences
Department of Communication Pathology
Selected Highlights from Research Findings
Preliminary findings seem to indicate that the auditory steady state response technique will revolutionise hearing testing in infants and other difficult-to-test populations across the age spectrum. It provides the opportunity to predict hearing ability across the severity spectrum for each critical frequency separately without requiring any voluntary responses to sound. The findings further indicate that, if a hearing loss is detected before three months of age and hearing aids are fitted before six months of age, children are able to develop age appropriate language skills commensurate with normally hearing persons. In other words, early intervention for children with hearing loss improves language and speech abilities and, ultimately, performance at school. In the long-term the quality of life of these individuals is dramatically increased while reducing the tremendous societal costs associated with supporting a person with a disability.
Contact person: Mr DCD Swanepoel.
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