Study Audiology Flashcards

What is Audiology?

Audiology is the study of hearing. As a branch of healthcare, it involves the diagnosis and treatment of hearing loss and balance disorders with medical and non-medical treatments.  

Audiologists are lesser known health professionals and their role and scope is largely unknown or misunderstood. To briefly explain, you might see an audiologist or an optometrist for a hearing or vision test, respectively and both healthcare professionals are doctors. However, if the optometrist diagnoses certain conditions, they would refer you to an ophthalmologist and similarly, the audiologist would refer you to an otolaryngologist. The otolaryngologist is a physician who has specialized in diagnosing and treating diseases of the ears, nose, mouth, and throat and is qualified to perform surgery.

Audiologists complete hearing exams, and have extensive training in sound reproduction, essential to the precise fitting and adjustment of hearing aids. They also diagnose and treat balance disorders and tinnitus commonly known as ringing in the ears. A further role of audiologists is to manage individual hearing and speech rehabilitation programs for patients that may have received cochlear implants, for example, and have had their hearing restored after being deaf from birth. Audiologists are in the business of helping people to hear and as such, they record high levels of job satisfaction!

Careers in  Audiology

The path to becoming a qualified audiologist is a long one. Students will undertake three to four years of undergraduate study, to prepare for higher-level studies. It’s best that students take courses that cover aspects of biology, psychology, physics, and linguistics, if possible. There are a number of colleges that have audiology courses and students completing the four to six-year doctoral degree in audiology will receive a Doctorate of Audiology (AuD).

An alternative career in audiology is to become an audiology technician or an audiology assistant. Since many of the patients an audiologist will see are elderly or young an interest in both geriatrics and pediatric health care is advantageous. A great audiology team delivers not just excellent clinical care but also an all-important psychological boost for patients. Audiology technicians generally have a bachelor's degree and are therefore paid more than assistants who have less education. The more educational courses you take the more your employer will pay you so the advice here is to get through as much school as you can.

There’s an increasing demand for all kinds of health professionals in the US with an aging population but if you have elderly neighbors or relatives you’ll know that hearing is one of the senses that predictably fails as we age. Consequently, the demand for audiology professionals remains exceptionally strong providing guaranteed job security and driving competitive salaries.

If you’re considering audiology then take a little time to visit The American Academy of Audiology and The Academy of Doctors of Audiology. You can also check out this video which features audiologists from The California Speech-Language Hearing Association (CSHA) describing their profession.

Learning  Audiology

Learning audiology is tough, audiology students are tasked with cramming in lots of information to successfully achieve their doctorate. There’s a whole heap of challenging curricular and technical content to absorb.

Brainscape has proven to be a significant boost for all kinds of students who face tough learning challenges in terms of large quantities of technical and academic knowledge. This unrivaled supplementary tool allows audiology students to compound coursework making clinical application a breeze.

Audiology in Brainscape

There are thousands of Brainscape flashcards prepared by top professors and Audiology students available to use, for free. There are also other pages in Brainscape that audiology students will find useful such as anatomy, physiology, psychology, geriatrics, pediatrics, embryology, pharmacology, and genetics.

Maybe you’ve decided that audiology is for you and you need to ace your AP exams to get great grades for college. We’ve partnered with Next Step Test Preparation to prepare the best study guides AP Maths, AP Biology and AP Chemistry available that will give you the edge.

Perhaps you prefer to study from your own coursework notes? Then you’ll find that Brainscape is the perfect partner for authoring your own ready-to-use personal interactive learning catalog.

Learn faster with Brainscape

The development of Brainscape’s learning system known as Confidence-Based Repetition or CBR is exciting news for learners.

CBR allows learners to cover content twice as fast, meaning that students can allocate their study time more effectively. Studying for a doctorate pushes many students to their limitations, certainly in terms of time, which is why Brainscape is indispensable.

The Brainscape system incorporates three learning scientifically proven methods into its CBR system, Active Recall, Metacognition, and Spaced Repetition. Whilst you will see some of these learning methods in other computer-aided learning tools, Brainscape is unique in its use of all three. Brainscape is also unique in its application of these methods to cover higher academic content.

The first method that Brainscape implements is active recall which is a crucial learning method for medical students. In Brainscape you will be presented with the task of retrieving information rather than recognizing information. When the neurons retrieve information, they are strengthened therefore when you want to recall the information later, the strong pathways will allow for successful retrieval. This is of uppermost importance for medical students who need to continually build on their past knowledge.

The CBR system also uses the spaced repetition learning method which has proven to be an excellent method of retaining information. The flashcard format delivery perfectly mimics this learning method of providing learners with easy-to-digest pieces of information at spaced intervals.

Separating Brainscape from the pack, though, is the use of metacognition to power the super-charged learning engine. Regardless of the complex cognitive science behind the scenes the user experience is seamless. After reviewing each card, you’ll rate your understanding of the subject matter from 1-5. If you don’t know the subject matter well, you might record a rating of “1”.  The algorithm can now effectively shuffle the deck so that flashcard is repeated frequently. In the interim, the cards you rated higher are repeated less frequently, freeing up your time to focus and improve on weaker areas. You never waste a second with this optimal learning system which is why thousands of medical and doctorate students rely on this amazing educational tool to get through their studies.  

How to get started

Ready to get started making Brainscape your personal learning tool?

You can choose to make your own flashcards or dig into our already prepared Audiology cards. Browse through and choose a deck from below such as Basic Acoustic and Terminology, Basilar Membrane, Malformations & Disorders, Ear Pathologies, Hearing Assessment, and Tympanometry.  Just pick one and start learning the smart way, today.

If you’d like to use our software and make your own flashcard, just click “make flashcards” at the top of the page to get started. Keep your note cards private or share with the Brainscape community - the choice is yours!

At Brainscape we are passionate about giving students the best educational tools available on the market to achieve their professional goals. The Brainscape team wishes you all the best in your Audiology studies and career.