Millions of Americans experience some degree of hearing loss. The Social Security Administration (SSA) operates programs that provide cash disability benefits to people with permanent impairments like hearing loss, if they can show that their impairments meet stringent SSA criteria and their earnings are below an SSA threshold. The National Research Council convened an expert committee at the request of the SSA to study the issues related to disability determination for people with hearing loss. This volume is the product of that study. Hearing Loss: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits reviews current knowledge about hearing loss and its measurement and treatment, and provides an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the current processes and criteria. It recommends changes to strengthen the disability determination process and ensure its reliability and fairness. The book addresses criteria for selection of pure tone and speech tests, guidelines for test administration, testing of hearing in noise, special issues related to testing children, and the difficulty of predicting work capacity from clinical hearing test results. It should be useful to audiologists, otolaryngologists, disability advocates, and others who are concerned with people who have hearing loss.

Clinical Masking Procedures provides the most comprehensive discussion of the topic currently available, presenting a theoretical foundation of masking that is essential for the understanding of applied clinical techniques. A strong foundation in the underlying concepts enables the clinician to make well informed decisions when selecting a specific approach and in applying and modifying the appropriate procedure. The goal of this book is to facilitate an understanding of the decision-making process required for clinical masking through problem-solving techniques. An entire chapter is devoted to clinical masking procedures using insert earphones, a current (and future) trend that has achieved increasing popularity over the past few years. Chapter 9 consists of a group of case studies, each of which includes a series of audiograms that takes the reader step-by-step from the initial audiological results through the completed audiological evaluation.