UT Dallas researchers get grant to develop test for hearing-impaired children

From: Fort Worth Star Telegram, TX - Jun 10, 2004

Associated Press

DALLAS - Researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas Callier Center for Communication Disorders have received a $2.4 million federal grant to develop a diagnostic technique to help doctors determine which hearing-impaired children will have greater benefit from a hearing aid or a cochlear implant.

"Medical science today does not have sufficient tools to help parents of hearing-impaired infants and their doctors make informed decisions regarding some possible courses of treatment," Dr. Anu Sharma, an associate professor of Callier's Advanced Hearing Research Center at UTD, said in a news release Thursday.

Sharma received funding for a five-year study from the National Institutes of Health.

Sharma, who heads the Auditory Cortical Function Laboratory at UTD, will lead a team of researchers from UTD, Arizona State University, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and Emory University. The team will evaluate diagnostic hearing techniques and validate the techniques against measures of speech development and standard measures of clinical care.

A cochlear implant is a device that is surgically inserted into the inner ear to electrically stimulate the auditory pathways, thus providing sound to deaf people.

© 2004 Fort Worth Star Telegram