How to become Audiologist in 2024

Audiologist Assess and treat persons with hearing and related disorders. May fit hearing aids and provide auditory training. May perform research related to hearing problems.

Audiologist is Also Know as

In different settings, Audiologist is titled as

  • Audiologist
  • Audiology Doctor (AUD)
  • Certificate of Clinical Competence in Audiology Licensed Audiologist (CCC-A Licensed Audiologist)
  • Clinical Audiologist
  • Dispensing Audiologist
  • Educational Audiologist
  • Forensic Audiologist
  • Industrial Audiologist
  • Pediatric Audiologist
  • Staff Audiologist

Education and Training of Audiologist

Audiologist is categorized in Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed

Experience Required for Audiologist

Extensive skill, knowledge, and experience are needed for these occupations. Many require more than five years of experience. For example, surgeons must complete four years of college and an additional five to seven years of specialized medical training to be able to do their job.

Education Required for Audiologist

Most of these occupations require graduate school. For example, they may require a master's degree, and some require a Ph.D., M.D., or J.D. (law degree).

Degrees Related to Audiologist

Training Required for Audiologist

Employees may need some on-the-job training, but most of these occupations assume that the person will already have the required skills, knowledge, work-related experience, and/or training.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to Audiologist in different industries are

What Do Audiologist do?

  • Examine and clean patients' ear canals.
  • Educate and supervise audiology students and health care personnel.
  • Develop and supervise hearing screening programs.
  • Counsel and instruct patients and their families in techniques to improve hearing and communication related to hearing loss.
  • Evaluate hearing and balance disorders to determine diagnoses and courses of treatment.
  • Program and monitor cochlear implants to fit the needs of patients.
  • Participate in conferences or training to update or share knowledge of new hearing or balance disorder treatment methods or technologies.
  • Conduct or direct research on hearing or balance topics and report findings to help in the development of procedures, technology, or treatments.
  • Plan and conduct treatment programs for patients' hearing or balance problems, consulting with educators, physicians, nurses, psychologists, speech-language pathologists, and other health care personnel, as necessary.
  • Administer hearing tests and examine patients to collect information on type and degree of impairment, using specialized instruments and electronic equipment.
  • Engage in marketing activities, such as developing marketing plans, to promote business for private practices.
  • Recommend assistive devices according to patients' needs or nature of impairments.
  • Fit, dispense, and repair assistive devices, such as hearing aids.
  • Advise educators or other medical staff on hearing or balance topics.
  • Provide information to the public on hearing or balance topics.
  • Instruct patients, parents, teachers, or employers in communication strategies to maximize effective receptive communication.
  • Work with multidisciplinary teams to assess and rehabilitate recipients of implanted hearing devices through auditory training and counseling.
  • Monitor patients' progress and provide ongoing observation of hearing or balance status.
  • Measure noise levels in workplaces and conduct hearing conservation programs in industry, military, schools, and communities.
  • Refer patients to additional medical or educational services, if needed.
  • Perform administrative tasks, such as managing office functions and finances.
  • Maintain patient records at all stages, including initial and subsequent evaluation and treatment activities.

Qualities of Good Audiologist

  • Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
  • Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
  • Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
  • Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
  • Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
  • Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
  • Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
  • Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
  • Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
  • Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
  • Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
  • Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
  • Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
  • Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
  • Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
  • Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
  • Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
  • Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
  • Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
  • Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
  • Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
  • Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
  • Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
  • Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
  • Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
  • Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
  • Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
  • Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
  • Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
  • Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
  • Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
  • Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
  • Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
  • Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
  • Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
  • Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.

Tools Used by Audiologist

  • Audiometers
  • Audiometric test booths
  • Auditory brainstem response ABR screening systems
  • Automatic impedance audiometers
  • Biofeedback equipment
  • Caloric irrigators
  • Computerized rotary chairs
  • Desktop computers
  • Diagnostic tuning forks
  • Digital light bars
  • Ear probes
  • Electroacoustic impedance bridges
  • Electrocochleography ECOG equipment
  • Electroneurography equipment
  • Electronystagmographs ENG
  • Headband mounted angular velocity sensors
  • Hearing aid analyzers
  • Hearing aid repair drills
  • Hearing aid repair grinders
  • Hearing aid test boxes
  • Hearing aids
  • Impression syringes
  • Jeweler's screwdrivers
  • Laptop computers
  • Operating microscopes
  • Otoaucoustic emissions OAE screening systems
  • Otoscopes
  • Personal computers
  • Portable auditory screeners
  • Portable diagnostic middle ear analyzers
  • Posturography dynamic platforms
  • Potentiometers
  • Programmable hearing aids
  • Sensory organization performance test systems
  • Sound level meters
  • Speech mapping systems
  • Tablet computers
  • Two-channel audiometers
  • Tympanometers
  • Vestibular Evoked Myogenic Potential VEMP testing equipment
  • Video goggles
  • Video head impulse testing HIT equipment
  • Video nystagmography testing equipment
  • Video otoscopes

Technology Skills required for Audiologist

  • Abacus Data Solutions HearWare
  • Bio-logic Systems HINT Pro
  • Chart Links
  • Computers Unlimited TIMS for Audiology
  • Customer relationship management CRM software
  • Ear measurement software
  • Ear Works
  • eClinicalWorks EHR software
  • Etymotic Research QuickSIN
  • GN Otometrics CHARTR EP
  • Healthcare common procedure coding system HCPCS
  • HearForm Software HearForm
  • Hearing aid fitting software
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft Office software
  • Microsoft Outlook
  • Microsoft PowerPoint
  • Microsoft Word
  • Operating system software
  • Patient management software
  • Practice management software PMS
  • Real ear measurement REM software
  • Siemens Hearing Instruments Practice Navigator
  • Simply Hearing Software Simply Hearing OMS
  • Starkey Laboratories ProHear
  • Sycle practice management software
  • Vestibular diagnostic software
  • Vestibular Technologies ScreenTRAK