The Audiologist Informer

Google will be teaming up with the National Acoustic Laboratories (NAL), Cochlear, Macquarie University Hearing, NextSense, and The Shepherd Center to explore new ideas for applying artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to challenges in listening and communication for people with hearing loss.

In this context, a “red flag” provides both patients and audiologists with some advanced warning of a challenging situation involving the selection and use of hearing aids. By plotting the scores of two speech-in-noise tests on a matrix, authors Brian Taylor, AuD, and Jill Bernstein, AuD, show how important “real world” information about a patient’s communication ability can be quickly obtained and used in the hearing aid decision-making process.

Our native language may affect the way in which our brains are wired and underlie the way we think, a new study reports. Using neuroimaging to analyze neural connectivity in native German and native Arabic speakers, researchers found stronger connectivity between the right and left hemispheres in Arabic speakers, and stronger connectivity in the left hemisphere language area in German speakers.