2014 AAA Foundation AudiologyNOW! Lecture Series

The American Academy of Audiology Foundation is pleased to present its annual lecture series at AudiologyNOW! featuring world renowned experts in pediatric audiology, tinnitus and workplace management. Be sure to mark your schedule for these can’t-miss continuing education opportunities that will provide many takeaways and insights no matter your practice setting.

Thursday, March 27, 3:00 – 6:00pm ET
Improving Patient Care Through Innovation in Workplace Management Lecture
Jen Shirkani, Penumbra Talent Management Solutions
Strategic Applications of Emotional Intelligence
0.3 CEUs/ABA Tier 1
Philanthropic support provided by Phonak LLC

Ms. Shirkani will explore Emotional Intelligence (EQ) , the ability we each have to recognize and manage our behaviors, moods and impulses. This session explains the correlation between Emotional Intelligence, performance effectiveness and patient care. Attendees will discover strategies for utilizing the key EQ skill set including empathy, optimism and resiliency, and learn to leverage EQ to more successfully communicate and interact with colleagues, staff and patients.

Friday, March 28, 10:00-11:30am ET
10th Anniversary Marion Downs Lecture in Pediatric Audiology
Nina Kraus, PhD, Northwestern University
Using Biological Assessment in Audiology: Spotlight on Auditory Processing and Hearing in Noise
0.15 CEUs
Philanthropic support provided by The Oticon Foundation

Dr. Kraus will consider the brain’s response to complex sounds such as the information-bearing elements of speech, and how responses to consonants and consonant-vowel transitions are especially vulnerable to background noise and track well with auditory processing and language abilities. Kraus will discuss how her biological approach, the auditory brainstem response to complex stimuli (cABR) has a lot in common—in terms of collection procedure and individual reliability—with the ABR widely used in clinical practice. In addition, she will illustrate how she and her colleagues have employed this biological approach to people of all ages—from toddlers to older adults with hearing loss, and experimental animals— representing its value as a uniform metric.

Friday, March 28, 3:00 – 6:00pm ET
Topics in Tinnitus Lecture
Richard Salvi, PhD, University at Buffalo
Phantom Sound Tinnitus: Human Brain Imaging, Neural Plasticity, Animal Models and Therapy
0.3 CEUs/ABA Tier 1
Philanthropic support provided by Widex USA

Dr. Salvi will cover the evolution of theory about phantom sound tinnitus. Originally, the neural generator responsible for tinnitus and hyperacusis was thought to reside in the cochlea; however, masking data and clinical studies suggest that it might be generated in the brain. Salvi will discuss his research that evaluated this hypothesis, using PET imaging techniques to locate regions in the human brain activated when tinnitus loudness changed in response to an oral facial movement (OFM), lateral eye gaze (GET), or lidocaine. He found that the patterns of brain neural activity evoked by OFM, GET, and lidocaine were different from those evoked by a real sound, which suggested that the neural generator(s) for tinnitus reside in the brain rather than the ear. He will also address ototoxicity and tinnitus, specifically how he developed a behavioral model in which rats were trained to “tell us” if they were experiencing tinnitus, as he sought to identify potential drugs to treat tinnitus. Finally, Salvi’s presentation will include a discussion about how the development of new brain imaging techniques and animal models has greatly advanced our understanding of the neural bases of tinnitus.

In order to ensure that the widest number of audiology professionals have access to the lecture series, all three presentations will be webcast live from AudiologyNOW! in Orlando; in addition, these lecture will be accessible on-demand through March 31, 2015. Visit eAudiology.org to register for the live or on-demand webcast of the AAA Foundation lecture series.