Research Why I Appreciate My #StartWithERG.

Why I Appreciate My

#StartWithERGBy Viji Easwar, Ph.D.

I decided to enter the field of scientific research after my work as a pediatric audiologist at the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow, Scotland. I saw babies, toddlers, and children with hearing loss, with and without hearing aids, as part of my caseload.

Many of them were doing well, but many did not like how their hearing aids sounded and felt they were not doing any better with hearing aids than without. It was especially bothersome among kids with steeply sloping losses on their audiograms—mild hearing losses and unilateral (in one ear) hearing losses—and not surprisingly, they were inconsistent device users. Some of them even returned their hearing aids and came for annual appointments only to have their hearing monitored.

Parents of young babies fit with hearing aids often asked how we would know whether hearing aids were of benefit as many of them were striving to achieve consistent hearing aid retention and use. Hearing aid fitting in children with additional developmental disabilities was even more challenging. If the hearing assessment was completed using auditory brainstem responses and hearing aid fittings were based on those results, it was still difficult to measure how well those children heard with hearing aids.

Given all these experiences, I wanted to do some research into how measures based on the EEG (electroencephalogram), or a recording of brain activity, could be used to assess hearing aid benefit. I also became interested in knowing if EEG-based measures could tell us something about why some children performed better than others, or if they could predict performance with intervention.

I was always interested in using EEG to infer one or more aspects of hearing since my undergraduate days. But it was my clinical experience in Glasgow that helped shape my research interests in using EEG to measure hearing abilities in children who did and did not use hearing aids.

Parents of young babies fit with hearing aids often asked how we would know whether hearing aids were of benefit as many of them were striving to achieve consistent hearing aid retention and use. Hearing aid fitting in children with additional developmental disabilities was even more challenging.

Personal Connection

My grandfather developed hearing loss due to aging. It was gradual so it is difficult to say when he developed it precisely. I recall completing his hearing test when I finished my undergrad degree in audiology. Since hearing loss is expected as we get older, I don’t think he was too surprised or upset when it was first confirmed. Also, by the time he had a hearing test, he had already experienced poor hearing in most everyday situations. He had to turn up the TV volume and my grandmother would have to face him to have a conversation with him.

To me, it seemed like he accepted it as a part of aging. If he didn’t hear something, he didn’t care so much because he just felt it was a part of growing old and being retired. He said his grandchildren and great-grandchildren were loud enough for him to hear them, and he would joke that not being able to hear was an excuse to not be bothered by petty matters.

But when all our family members met, he would often get a bit upset that he couldn’t hear the jokes and would ask for them to be repeated. He wore hearing aids, made by two different manufacturers, in both ears. Despite not being able to hear well, especially in groups and over the phone, he wore them all day, every day—I think partly to please others, so they wouldn’t complain about him not wearing them.

Looking Forward

Hearing loss is commonly referred to as an invisible disability as it is unlike any physical disability. My hope is that, with new technology and improved hearing care services, children with hearing loss will develop like their typical hearing peers and be able to participate and enjoy interacting with others seamlessly. I hope for the day when the invisibility of hearing loss does not matter! Or when hearing loss truly becomes invisible.

The Emerging Research Grant from HHF was my first independent grant to investigate using EEG to measure hearing aid benefit in children. While the study uses methods that were developed during my Ph.D. at Western University in Canada, at that time the method was only evaluated in adults with hearing loss.

The use of EEG for measuring hearing aid benefit is intended for babies who are too young to participate in clinical hearing/listening tests, and for older children who may have additional disabilities and are hence unable to participate in clinical hearing tests. With my recent move to Australia’s National Acoustic Laboratories—an entity that already has a significant track record of using innovative approaches like EEG to measure hearing aid benefit in infants—I am excited to continue the work of this initial project to pave the way to future evaluation in infants using our novel approach.

A 2019 Emerging Research Grants scientist funded by the Children’s Hearing Institute, Viji Easwar, Ph.D., recently relocated to Australia to become the lead researcher of the pediatric hearing research program at the National Acoustic Laboratories in Sydney.

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