Functional Hearing

Though the teaching of aural skills is one of the most important tasks facing the college-level music educator, it is often one of the most problematic, sometimes the most feared. Some of this apprehension undoubtedly arises from the lack of effective pedagogical tools that can reliably and more completely address the needs of the discipline. Functional Hearing fills this void with its unique method of comprehensive ear training. This book not only presents melodies for dictation and sight-singing, but also instructs students in how to develop the skills and strategies to hear and sight-sing unfamiliar music. In addition to presenting harmonic and rhythmic dictations, students are also shown how to listen and use their theoretical knowledge to comprehend the harmonic and rhythmic contexts in which they are listening. The book is divided into seven areas which include: Hearing the Essential Elements of Music; Hearing Quality, Function, and Inversion in Triads; Hearing Quality, Function, and Inversion in Seventh Chords; Hearing Secondary Functions and Modulations; Hearing and Performing in Multiple Parts; Hearing Chromaticism; and Hearing in Nonfunctional Contexts. Together, they incorporate unique and groundbreaking ways to train the ears of developing musicians and to encourage them to acquire a high level of aural skill. Functional Hearing is intended to be used in any aural skills sequence lasting from two to seven semesters, or as a companion text in most traditional courses in music theory. The corresponding Instructor's Manual is available free upon request (1-880157-58-6).

Millions of Americans experience some degree of hearing loss. The Social Security Administration (SSA) operates programs that provide cash disability benefits to people with permanent impairments like hearing loss, if they can show that their impairments meet stringent SSA criteria and their earnings are below an SSA threshold. The National Research Council convened an expert committee at the request of the SSA to study the issues related to disability determination for people with hearing loss. This volume is the product of that study. Hearing Loss: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits reviews current knowledge about hearing loss and its measurement and treatment, and provides an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the current processes and criteria. It recommends changes to strengthen the disability determination process and ensure its reliability and fairness. The book addresses criteria for selection of pure tone and speech tests, guidelines for test administration, testing of hearing in noise, special issues related to testing children, and the difficulty of predicting work capacity from clinical hearing test results. It should be useful to audiologists, otolaryngologists, disability advocates, and others who are concerned with people who have hearing loss.

The Auditory Brain and Age-Related Hearing Impairment provides an overview of the interaction between age-related hearing impairments and cognitive brain function. This monograph elucidates the techniques used in the connectome and other brain-network studies based on electrophysiological methods. Discussions of the manifestations of age-related hearing impairment, the causes of degradation of sound processing, compensatory changes in the human brain, and rehabilitation and intervention are included. There is currently a surge in content on aging and hearing loss, the benefits of hearing aids and implants, and the correlation between hearing loss, cognitive decline and early onset of dementia. Given the changing demographics, treatment of age-related hearing impairment need not just be bottom-up (i.e., by amplification and/or cochlear implantation), but also top-down by addressing the impact of the changing brain on communication. The role of age-related capacity for audio-visual integration and its role in assisting treatment have only recently been investigated, thus this area needs more attention. Relates the techniques used in the connectome and other brain-network studies to the human auditory-cortex and age-related hearing loss research findings Examines the side effects of age-related hearing impairment and their impact on the quality of life for the elderly Evaluates the importance of multi-modal means in the rehabilitation of the elderly with hearing aids and cochlear implants Discusses the role of neurostimulation and various training procedures to halt, or potentially reverse, cognitive decline in the elderly

Being able to communicate is a cornerstone of healthy aging. People need to make themselves understood and to understand others to remain cognitively and socially engaged with families, friends, and other individuals. When they are unable to communicate, people with hearing impairments can become socially isolated, and social isolation can be an important driver of morbidity and mortality in older adults. Despite the critical importance of communication, many older adults have hearing loss that interferes with their social interactions and enjoyment of life. People may turn up the volume on their televisions or stereos, miss words in a conversation, go to fewer public places where it is difficult to hear, or worry about missing an alarm or notification. In other cases, hearing loss is much more severe, and people may retreat into a hard-to-reach shell. Yet fewer than one in seven older Americans with hearing loss use hearing aids, despite rapidly advancing technologies and innovative approaches to hearing health care. In addition, there may not be an adequate number of professionals trained to address the growing need for hearing health care for older adults. Further, Medicare does not cover routine hearing exams, hearing aids, or exams for fitting hearing aids, which can be prohibitively expensive for many older adults. Hearing Loss and Healthy Aging is the summary of a workshop convened by the Forum on Aging, Disability, and Independence in January 2014 on age-related hearing loss. Researchers, advocates, policy makers, entrepreneurs, regulators, and others discussed this pressing social and public health issue. This report examines the ways in which age-related hearing loss affects healthy aging, and how the spectrum of public and private stakeholders can work together to address hearing loss in older adults as a public health issue.

The loss of hearing - be it gradual or acute, mild or severe, present since birth or acquired in older age - can have significant effects on one's communication abilities, quality of life, social participation, and health. Despite this, many people with hearing loss do not seek or receive hearing health care. The reasons are numerous, complex, and often interconnected. For some, hearing health care is not affordable. For others, the appropriate services are difficult to access, or individuals do not know how or where to access them. Others may not want to deal with the stigma that they and society may associate with needing hearing health care and obtaining that care. Still others do not recognize they need hearing health care, as hearing loss is an invisible health condition that often worsens gradually over time. In the United States, an estimated 30 million individuals (12.7 percent of Americans ages 12 years or older) have hearing loss. Globally, hearing loss has been identified as the fifth leading cause of years lived with disability. Successful hearing health care enables individuals with hearing loss to have the freedom to communicate in their environments in ways that are culturally appropriate and that preserve their dignity and function. Hearing Health Care for Adults focuses on improving the accessibility and affordability of hearing health care for adults of all ages. This study examines the hearing health care system, with a focus on non-surgical technologies and services, and offers recommendations for improving access to, the affordability of, and the quality of hearing health care for adults of all ages.

The Journal of Auditory Research (Volume 5, No. 3, July 1965) An Interdiscipline Non-Profit Quarterly for All Workers Seriously Interested in the Scientific Study of Hearing Publication Covers Such Fields As: Otology, Audiology, Musicology, Psychoacoustics, Speech G Communications, Neurophysiology of Audition, Instrumentation for Hearing Research, and Auditory Aspects of Human Engineering. Editorial Policy Board: NORTON CANFIELD M.D., RAYMOND CARHART Ph.D., STACY GUILD, HENRY L. HAINES MD, FRED KRANZ PhD., ALVIN M. LIBERMAN Ph.D., E. GLEN WEVER PhD. J. DONALD HARRIS, Ph.D., Editor 348 Long Hill Road, Groton, Conn. Review Editors: EDWARD C. CARTERETTE, RICHARD H. EHMER, WENDELL R. GARNER, DAVID M. GREEN. KATHERINE S. HARRIS, KARL KRYTER, MERLE LAWRENCE, PETER MACPHERSON, MAX NELSON, ABE PEPINSKY, and IRWIN POLLACK and others, some of whom wish to remain anonymous. Published by THE C. W. SHILLING AUDITORY RESEARCH CENTER, INC. A Private Non-Profit Corporation Devoted to Scholarship, Research, and A; Publication in the Field of Hearing 348 Long Hill Road, Groton Connecticut 06340