Two of our audiologists are celebrating success in their careers.

Our clinical manager Marta Lopes has had a paper published and Clara Mesquita has been awarded her foundation degree – with distinction – meaning she is now a fully qualified audiologist.

Marta’s paper – her Masters degree dissertation – was published in the PeerJ journal. It was concerned with deaf or hearing-impaired children who are now receiving cochlear implants which give them good speech understanding.

But how well do these children perceive pitch, gender and emotion in the speech they hear, compared to normal hearing children?

That was what Marta wanted to try to find out for her dissertation.

She looked at the development of normal hearing children for pitch perception, emotion and gender to provide data for assessing children with cochlear implants.

The test used multiple speakers expressing three main emotions – happy, angry and sad.

“By trying to understand the perceptual abilities of normal hearing children, this study will help to improve the design of rehabilitation programmes for children with cochlear implants,” Marta said.

The test was also used to investigate language effects by testing normal hearing Dutch and English children to see if the test was suitable for use with deaf Dutch children with cochlear implants.

Read Marta’s paper here.

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Clara has been studying at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge for the last two years, completing the foundation degree in Hearing Aid Audiology – and gaining a distinction.

This degree focuses on hearing aid dispensing, concentrating on basic aspects of the physiology and psychology of hearing, from the disorders to the impacts on a patient’s life.

It includes key modules such as basic sciences, pathology, hearing assessment and hearing aid technology, which together provide the basic skills for professional practice.

Clara said: “I am indeed pleased with this accomplishment. It reinforced my previous knowledge from the level 4 HCA and improved my skills and confidence which I believe will have a positive impact in my daily practice. However, I do not see this as an end but as an ongoing pathway. There’s always room for learning.”