Hearing Aid Specialist Select and fit hearing aids for customers. Administer and interpret tests of hearing. Assess hearing instrument efficacy. Take ear impressions and prepare, design, and modify ear molds.
Hearing Aid Specialist is Also Know as
In different settings, Hearing Aid Specialist is titled as
- Audioprosthologist
- Hearing Aid Consultant
- Hearing Aid Specialist
- Hearing Care Practitioner
- Hearing Care Specialist
- Hearing Instrument Dispenser
- Hearing Instrument Specialist (HIS)
- Hearing Specialist
- Licensed Hearing Instrument Specialist (Licensed HIS)
- National Board Certified Hearing Instrument Specialist (National Board Certified HIS)
Education and Training of Hearing Aid Specialist
Hearing Aid Specialist is categorized in Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed
Experience Required for Hearing Aid Specialist
Previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is required for these occupations. For example, an electrician must have completed three or four years of apprenticeship or several years of vocational training, and often must have passed a licensing exam, in order to perform the job.
Education Required for Hearing Aid Specialist
Most occupations in this zone require training in vocational schools, related on-the-job experience, or an associate's degree.
Degrees Related to Hearing Aid Specialist
- Bachelor in Hearing Instrument Specialist
- Associate Degree Courses in Hearing Instrument Specialist
- Masters Degree Courses in Hearing Instrument Specialist
Training Required for Hearing Aid Specialist
Employees in these occupations usually need one or two years of training involving both on-the-job experience and informal training with experienced workers. A recognized apprenticeship program may be associated with these occupations.
Related Ocuupations
Some Ocuupations related to Hearing Aid Specialist in different industries are
- Neurodiagnostic Technologists
- Ophthalmic Medical Technicians
- Speech-Language Pathology Assistants
- Orthotists and Prosthetists
- Occupational Therapy Aides
- Dental Assistants
- Physical Therapist Aides
- Medical Assistants
- Endoscopy Technicians
- Ophthalmic Medical Technologists
- Audiologists
- Emergency Medicine Physicians
- Speech-Language Pathologists
- Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physicians
- Optometrists
- Pediatric Surgeons
- Cardiologists
- Orthopedic Surgeons, Except Pediatric
- Ophthalmologists, Except Pediatric
- Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
What Do Hearing Aid Specialist do?
- Select and administer tests to evaluate hearing or related disabilities.
- Administer basic hearing tests including air conduction, bone conduction, or speech audiometry tests.
- Train clients to use hearing aids or other augmentative communication devices.
- Create or modify impressions for earmolds and hearing aid shells.
- Maintain or repair hearing aids or other communication devices.
- Demonstrate assistive listening devices (ALDs) to clients.
- Diagnose and treat hearing or related disabilities under the direction of an audiologist.
- Perform basic screening procedures, such as pure tone screening, otoacoustic screening, immittance screening, and screening of ear canal status using otoscope.
- Assist audiologists in performing aural procedures, such as real ear measurements, speech audiometry, auditory brainstem responses, electronystagmography, and cochlear implant mapping.
- Read current literature, talk with colleagues, and participate in professional organizations or conferences to keep abreast of developments in audiology.
- Counsel patients and families on communication strategies and the effects of hearing loss.
Qualities of Good Hearing Aid Specialist
- 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.
- Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
- 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.
- Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
- Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
- Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
- Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
- Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
- Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
- Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
- Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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).
- Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
- 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.
- Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
- Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
- Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
- Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
- Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
- Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
- 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).
- 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).
- Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
- 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.
- Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
- Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
- Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
- 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.
- 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.
- Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
- Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
- Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
- Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
- Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
- Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
- Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- 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.
- Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
- Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
Tools Used by Hearing Aid Specialist
- Auditory brainstem response screening systems
- Automatic impedance audiometers
- Behind-the-ear hearing aids
- Caloric irrigators
- Circumaural headphones
- Color laser printers
- Desktop computers
- Diagnostic tuning forks
- Ear probes
- Electroacoustic impedance bridges
- Handheld otoscopes
- Hearing aid analyzers
- Hearing aid programming interfaces
- Hearing aid vacuum systems
- In-the-canal hearing aids
- In-the-ear hearing aids
- Laser measurement systems
- Mechanical stethoscopes
- Mini hearing aids
- Otoacoustic emissions equipment OAE
- Personal computers
- Portable auditory screeners
- Probe microphones
- Programmable hearing aids
- Pure tone audiometers
- Sound booths
- Speech audiometers
- Speech mapping systems
- Tablet computers
- Two-channel amplifiers
- Two-channel audiometers
- Tympanometers
- Ultrasonic cleaning systems
- Video-otoscopes
- Warble tone audiometers
- Wide range audiometers
Technology Skills required for Hearing Aid Specialist
- HIMSA Noah
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft Office software
- Microsoft Outlook
- Microsoft PowerPoint
- Microsoft Word
- Otometrics OTOsuite