Volume 8 Issue 1 (pdf) - Andrew John Publishing Inc

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provides us with an amazing insight into
the issues and audiological hurdles of the
early 1980s.
Section III deals with “Engineering
Applications – Special Problems.” Topics
include acoustic feedback control,
telephone coupling, transducer and
earmold effects, signal and speech
processing, the evaluation of compression
processing, and a new topic- recent
research on multi-band compression.
Again, the author list is impressive – S.
Lybarger, D. Egolf, M. Killion, E. Libby,
J. Lim, R. Schafer, L. Braida, N. Durlach,
and E. Villchur. Some of the material in
this section is dated but it’s nice to see the
original thoughts of some of the founders
and early thinkers of this field. Acoustic
feedback control was limited to simple
phase shifting by an all pass filter that
was non-linear with respect to phase- a
far cry from today’s use of phase control,
notching filtering, and gain reduction,
sometimes all available in one hearing aid
product. E. Villchur is known as the
father of modern day compression, and
although his article is from 1981, it’s well
worth re-reading even today. (See also
Founders of our Profession interview
with Eddie Villchur in the Canadian
Hearing Report 2008:3[1]:19–20.)
The final section (IV) is about the
Delivery of Services and this discussion
is as valid today as it was 30 years ago.
Issues discussed were about hearing aid
selection, a basis for selection
amplification characteristics, validation
of the selection measures and measures
of hearing aid fitting success, factors
affecting hearing aid use, and my
personal favourite, a chapter by Mark
Ross on Communication Access.
Although Dr. Ross’s article was written
more than 30 years ago, it is still apropos
to today’s time. (See also Founders of our
Profession interview with Mark Ross in
the Canadian Hearing Report
2009;4(1):28–30.) Other authors read
like the list of rock stars that they were-
G. Studebaker, L. Beck, M. Skinner, D.
Pasco, J. Miller, G. Popelka, G.
McCandless, D. Byrne, B. Walden, E.
Owens, M. Osberger, M. Collins, M.
Ross, and D. Konkle.
Finally Fred Bess and Wayne Olsen
wrapped it up in the final section V
“Research Needs.” Many of these issues
and topics have still not been resolved
today, but we are on our way.
The Vanderbilt Report is a conglomeration
of the state of the art 30 years
ago. Reading through the yellowed
pages will provide the reader with insight
of where we have been, and even more
importantly, where we are going.
Canadian Hearing Report 2013;8(1):19-20.
The Moneca Price Humanitarian
award is presented to an audiologist
in recognition of extraordinary
humanitarian and community service,
above and beyond the requirements of
employment. The award is to honour
the late Moneca Price, who took on
significant leadership roles in both the
Canadian Academy of Audiology (CAA)
and the College of Audiologists and
Congratulations to Gilbert Li,
Winner of the 2012 CAA Moneca Price
Humanitarian Award
Speech Language Pathologists of Ontario
(CASLPO).
This year’s winner, Gilbert Li, provides
free audiology services in underprivileged
regions in the Yunnan
Province of China. Prior to each visit,
Gilbert invests substantial personal time
in soliciting donated or refurbished
hearing aids and equipment in
preparation for his humanitarian work.
The organization he volunteers with is
called EMAS (Education, Medical Aid
and Service). His team has seen over 300
people and dispensed 207 hearing aids
– free of charge. The $500 award he
received at the 2012 CAA conference in
Ottawa was put towards furthering his
work on another trip to China in
November.
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