By Mitchell Batavia, PT, Ph.D.
Having a hearing impairment myself, I find it ironic and somewhat puzzling that when going to hearing clinics, patients who need help with their hearing have to somehow hear and respond to staff calling their name in waiting rooms.
Mitchell Batavia PT, Ph.D., is an associate professor of physical therapy at New York University and a person with a hearing impairment. In addition to cartoons and flash fiction, he has published healthcare textbooks with Elsevier and Butterworth-Heinemann.
Many single-sided deafness patients perform perfectly on standard speech-in-quiet tests due to their healthy ear, a “ceiling effect” that masks the real-world challenges they face. We propose using more sensitive metrics that assess sound quality and music perception.