Page 44 - Fall2021

WHY WAS YOUR HEARING TESTED?
Figure 4. The Western Electric 1A audiometer. Available at acousticstoday.org/WE1aaudiometer. Accessed March 14, 2021 and April 15, 2021.
1922 to the Present: Quantitative Measures of Hearing Ability Utilizing Psychophysics and Physiology
Beginning in the twentieth century, the development of elec- tronics, primarily based on the vacuum tube, resulted in the creation of electronic-based instruments for testing hearing, the audiometer. These were originally reported in 1921 in Germany (Feldman, 1979). In 1922, the Western Electric
Company (Fowler and Wegel, 1922) in the United States introduced the 1A audiometer that became the model for subsequent commercial instruments (Figure 4). The use of the audiometer to establish hearing ability in patients rap- idly became the standard of practice throughout the world.
Children
The advances in electronics were applied to mass screen- ing of children. Figure 5B shows a school class being tested with the equipment in Figure 5A. Several devices using a phonograph to control the stimulus that was distributed to a classroom of pupils through earphones was utilized through schools primarily throughout North America and Europe. Figure 5A shows the equipment used to test multiple children simultaneously. Fletcher (1929) stated that: “It is estimated that approximately 1 million have now been tested with this instrument...” By the 1940s, almost all schoolchildren in North America and Europe would have their hearing tested.
Screening for hearing loss in newborns was considered to be critical for the optimal development of the child. In 1944, British investigators Ewing and Ewing articulated the need for some means to test newborns, but with a comprehensive survey of the literature, they could not identify any way to carry this out. Fisch (1957), also in the United Kingdom, noted the need for a newborn/ infant screening system and described what became to be known as a high-risk registry for identifying infants
at risk for substantial hearing loss:
“Screening of children with unknown possible cause of hearing loss their history is more practical... If
Figure 5. A: 4B phono audiometer complete with four receiving trays and carrying case. B: testing school children’s hearing using telephone headsets with the 4B audiometer (Fowler, 1947).
44 Acoustics Today • Fall 2021