A Survey of Teachers' Knowledge of Audiology in an Educational Setting

In the United States, hearing loss has been found in 10%-20% of the pediatric population. Pediatric hearing loss can negatively impact academic performance and has been shown to negatively impact reading, writing, math, and other academic areas (Collier, 2025; Niclasen et al., 2016). Educational audiologists are part of the school multidisciplinary team who facilitate listening, learning, and communication access, as well as advocate for school children with hearing loss (Educational Audiology Association, 2019). Approximately 87% of students with hearing loss in the United States spend a portion of the school day in general education classrooms (Berndsen & Luckner, 2012). Therefore, the working relationship between the educational audiologist and classroom teacher is essential to facilitate successful learning for children with hearing loss. This study aims to determine general education teachers' familiarity with educational audiologists, as well as their confidence levels in teaching children who are hard of hearing.

A Qualtrics (2025) survey analyzing teachers' exposure to students with hearing loss, their access to audiological resources, and their knowledge on the interconnectedness between education and audiology was sent to teachers. The teachers had a variety of work backgrounds including private school, public school, experience (or no experience) working with students with hearing loss, and experience (or no experience) working with educational audiologists. The authors hypothesized that teachers would have a limited knowledge of audiology and low confidence levels in teaching students with hearing loss.

A total of 93 teachers from seven states in the United States (GA, AL, FL, VA, TN, NJ, and AK) completed the survey. Results indicate that most participants are confident in teaching a child with hearing loss (54.84%; n = 51), have little to no experience with educational audiologists (69.89%; n = 65), and are unaware of the services an educational audiologist provides.

The findings reveal a disconnect between those who teach and audiology, which should encourage audiologists to advocate for the field through increased education and resources to all types of classroom teachers in all school settings.