Welcome to the 2021 NHCA Virtual Conference Schedule, below you will find the schedule listed with 3 types of education sessions, Live Platform, Pre-recorded Platform and E-Poster Sessions. They will all be delivered a little differently so please take a little time to read the descriptions and understand how the conference will be laid out.
Live Platforms: NHCA is offering 7 live sessions with interactive Q&A and chat features over the two days of the live conference. If you are not able to watch these sessions live they will be recorded and playback will be available until March 19, 2021
ON DEMAND Pre-Recorded Platforms: There will be 28 pre-recorded sessions that will be released on the first day of the conference, these will be available to watch at your leisure and will be available until March 19, 2021. PLEASE NOTE: They are available longer than the 1-5 pm time on the schedule but we are not able to program them in like that!
ON DEMAND E-Poster Sessions: There will be 8 E-Poster sessions available to watch, each session is 15 minutes long and worth a quarter of a credit, in order to receive a full hour you will need to watch 4 poster sessions all the way through and complete and evaluation. These will be available as pre-recordings and will be available from the start of the conference until March 19, 2021
This means you have the opportunity for up to 19.0 CE credits at this years conference! (See ASHA AND AAA Brand Blocks below)
If you are trying to login to the learning center to attend the conference, please CLICK HERE to go to the Learning Center, this is just a digital agenda!
Our ears capture sound from all directions but do not encode directional information explicitly. Associations between subtle acoustic features and the source locations that produce them must be learned through experience. Surprisingly, aspects of this mapping process remain highly plastic throughout adulthood: Adult human listeners can accommodate acutely modified acoustic inputs (‘new ears’) over a period of a few weeks to recover near-normal sound localization ability, and this process can be accelerated with explicit training. Here we sought to leverage this intrinsic plasticity in an applied setting to ameliorate disruptions of sound source localization caused by earplugs – presently a constraint on their usability. Sound source localization accuracy and the incidence of hazardous perceptual errors known as front-back confusions were measured across a series of brief training sessions. Provision of feedback via simple paired auditory-visual stimuli led to a rapid decrease in front-back confusions, even with only once-weekly exposure to the altered acoustic inputs. Moreover, training effects generalized to untrained sound source locations. Data yield insight on the nature and time course of perceptual learning for spatial hearing, and demonstrate that perceptual errors caused by earplugs can be substantially decreased with training, offering a practical means to increase their usability.Hearing loss and tinnitus are the most prevalent permanent injuries in the military, accounting for a substantial number of medical boarding actions. Hearing-related trauma can be attributed to hazardous noise exposure in active duty service members who, despite efforts from hearing conservation programs, continue to experience hearing-related issues warranting referral for audiological services. The increasing numbers of patients reporting such injuries are experiencing difficulties accessing audiological hearing readiness services within the Military Health System (MHS) due to its lack of specialty services in remote areas. As a result, some patients have delayed care and/or been referred out of the TRICARE network. However, current audiology virtual health (VH) services within MHS have demonstrated the feasibility to expand the accessibility of these specialized services and expedite its provision to patients in underserved areas. In addition to optimizing access to quality patient care for audiology and hearing readiness, VH has demonstrated ample potential to decrease expenses related to the number of travel reimbursement requests, patients’ time spent away from duty station, and potentially eliminating purchased care cost. The success of this initiative at select location has provided the opportunity for consideration of a larger-scale introduction into the MHS.
Learning Objectives: As a result of this Continuing Education Activity, readers will be able to: 1) Identify possible reasons for sound localization associated with hearing protection misuse or disuse. 2) Describe front-back confusions associated with Hearing Protection Devices and why they can be hazardous. 3) Interpret auditory localization in adult listeners.
