The authors of Pediatric Amplification: Enhancing Auditory Access set out to provide a comprehensive resource for professionals who serve children who are hard of hearing and their families and caregivers, and they have delivered it. The book is easy to read and has a logical flow about it. From the very first chapter it engages the reader to share the enthusiasm for the subject that the authors clearly have.
It serves to motivate the reader, be that an experienced paediatric audiologist or someone new to or interested in the field. It would also be of interest to any professional who comes into contact or works with deaf children. It discusses the factors that, as clinicians, we can directly influence to improve a child’s audibility and those we cannot. It gives guidance on how these non-malleable factors can be faced and individualised for each child, paying particular attention to hearing aid use and wear, with a whole chapter dedicated to this topic.
The book covers the journey from screening and diagnosis to hearing aid fitting and evaluation. It includes simple case studies at the end to pull all of the discussed concepts together in real world scenarios. It has useful chapters on FM and assistive devices, with FM in the early years of particular interest. There is a section on the transition from hearing aid to implants with information on the newest procedures and expanding candidacy. The book gave an unintentional insight into private provision of paediatric hearing aids and assistive devices and how it may influence decision-making around it when these are not available to everyone universally.
The book, in my opinion, represents great value and the best rating I think I can give for a text such as this is that it positively improved my practice and it well worth the investment in both time and resource.
