Deaf and Hard of Hearing Audiology Students: Student and Preceptor Perspectives

(PhD student project)

Lead: Sarah Sparks, Au.D.

This project has two purposes. The first is to explore audiologist attitudes and possible biases regarding deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) audiology students. The second is to explore DHH audiology students’ self-perceptions and perceptions of audiology preceptor bias. Audiology preceptors are licensed audiologists who supervise students in clinical settings. According to the 2020 Audiology Student Census, students with some level of hearing loss make up ~14% of future audiologists. Although a minority in comparison to students with typical hearing ability, DHH students are entering Au.D. and undergraduate communication sciences and disorders programs and receiving the clinical education required for these programs. Although acceptance of DHH students within the audiology profession has not been documented among Au.D. programs, this topic has been explored in other healthcare professions such as medicine. DHH Au.D. students have life experience that audiologists with typical hearing ability cannot offer patients. At present, there are no empirical data to support recommendations for audiology preceptors about how to support these students during clinical rotations. This project will be a first step at addressing this problem.