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Read the full transcript here

In this episode, Dr. Saperstain speaks with Dr. Karen Muñoz. Dr. Muñoz is an audiologist of many years and department head and professor of communicative disorders and deaf education at Utah state university. Dr. Karen Muñoz specialized in the administrative, educational, and research fields of audiology after spending many years as a clinical practitioner. She also started the Hear to Learn  (Oir para aprender) program which is a website with many resources for parents of children who are deaf or hard of hearing.

This week on the All About Audiology podcast:

• 9:15 – Parents are the key to how intervention is going to go for their child. And what I would like parents to really embrace is how essential they are.

• 12:35 – Oftentimes audiologists want to focus on the technical stuff. We got a lot we do have to care about and we have to care about what’s happening with the parent and their thoughts and feelings that can interfere with what goes on every single day that they’re with a child

• 15:50 – The resources that bridge the hearing care team and the parents.

• 20:00 –  Even when parents get a “hearing aid care kit”  too often, they don’t use it, or don’t know what to do with it.

• 23:05 –  How parents can make informed decisions. 

• 27:10 – And I think as ethical professionals It’s about having those conversations about what are their underlying thoughts, feelings, and questions. That’s where we focus our efforts to be, that support for the families and helping them get what they need

• 29:30 – We are in a really key position to make sure they have the information that they need, we are not in the position to tell them what they have to do, but we’re there to help them have confidence!

For more resources and research visit:

All About Audiology Website 

All About Audiology Facebook group  

All About Audiology Instagram

And the Prodana pay-it-forward platform here: https://prodana.org/practioner/lilach-saperstein/audiology-counseling–dr–lilach-saperstein

Guest’s links:

Hear to Learn

Mentioned in this episode:

• H.E.A.R retreats
• Language first
• Peach questionnaire
• Little Ears questionnaire

Listen Next/Related Episodes

• Mallorie Evans

Transcript:

Dr. Lilach Saperstein:

Welcome back to the All About Audiology podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Lilach Saperstein, and this is the show where we talk about audiology in ways that really actually matter to you. 

If you are a parent of a deaf or hard-of-hearing child or you’ve just come into the world of Audiology, welcome to the show! There is an entire library of 86 plus episodes on all different topics. So go ahead to allaboutaudiology.com, put whatever search term you are dealing with, a hearing test, hearing aids, cochlear implants, any particular kind of diagnosis that you want to look into, maybe we’ve done an episode on it. And also as well as educational topics, advocacy topics, so you have lots to look at in the library at allaboutaudiology.com with full transcripts and show notes for each of the episodes. So definitely make use of the search bar there. 

Also, before we jump into today’s episode, I want to thank you all so much for being listeners and supporters of the show. To become a supporter of the show and help with production costs and transcription costs and editing costs then you can become a patron at patreon.com/allaboutaudiology, and that really, really, really helps. Even a small contribution is so appreciated. 

And lastly, I would like to invite you to join the mailing list so you are kept up to date about the upcoming H.E.A.R retreats that we run every so often online, which is an incredible gathering of parents from around the world talking about the real-life aspects of raising deaf or hard of hearing child. What really comes along with that processing… our own emotions, our own journey around this, as well as processing and helping our kids becoming really powerful self-advocates as we learn to advocate alongside them. 

The support in their community is really beautiful. So to get updates on upcoming events, you can of course follow me on social media at @allaboutaudiologypodcast on Instagram, and on Facebook in our parenting Facebook group, as well as joining the mailing list which is a surefire way to hear about updates and new upcoming episodes. 

Okay, enough of that. I would love to introduce today’s guest, Dr. Karen Muñoz, is the department head and professor of Communicative Disorders and Deaf Education at Utah State University. She is an audiologist of many years, as well as a researcher and I really am so glad that we’ve connected, and that she is coming on the show to talk about the parent-centered and patient-centered approach, person-centered approach. I mean, we all know that there are a lot of terms in audiology, about hearing aids and the different parts of the ear and all the different testing that we do and all of our acronyms, ADRs and OEEs, and all the different things that can become really mumble jumbled and… what are we even talking about at the end of the day and beginning of the day, we have to be really focused on the people the actual child or patient family in front of us. And I really love that that is her focus because that is something that I’m so passionate about and I want to learn more about the researchers who are doing so much incredible work in this field. So without further ado, I present the conversation that I had with Dr. Karen Muñoz. And of course, there will be full show notes and links to everything we talked about at allaboutaudiology.com. Thanks for listening, here we go!

Welcome, Dr. Karen Muñoz! To the All About Audiology podcast. It’s so wonderful to have you here. And I would love to start by having you introduce yourself and tell our listeners who you are. 

Dr. Karen Muñoz:

Well, thank you for inviting me. It’s nice to be here with you and to meet you. I’m an audiologist. I work in Utah I’ve got a varied history. I started audiology as a clinical practitioner, many many years ago, and then transitioned more into teaching research and now administration, so I’m at Utah State University currently.

LS:

And it’s so interesting that you have that trajectory. We definitely have a lot of students listening to this show, communication disorder students from around the world, and lots of times they are looking at their options, “what my career is going to look like?” And I always encourage people that, even if you choose something, that doesn’t mean that’s your life forever. There’s so many options and opportunities. 

So you started clinical what made you interested in moving into research in academics?

KM:

That’s such a great question, and people ask me that a lot, you know, because it’s such a little bit of an unusual path. And, you know, I really enjoyed working in the clinic and as I worked… I worked clinically for about 20 years, and during that time, I ended up focusing more on pediatrics as I went along. But when I got my degree, it was a master’s degree, and then the AUD came along. So it’s honestly that, that prompted me to look at this because I thought “Well, should I go back and get my AUD or, you know, what, what do I want to do?” And at that point in time, somebody had suggested to me that I look at a research degree. So it wasn’t any grand plan that I ever had along the way. It was an opportunity that showed up and I happen to work at a university at the t