Case study 16 year old
Samantha is 16 and in high school. She has a severe-profound hearing loss and signs with her
friends who have hearing loss and speaks with her friends who are hearing. She feels selfconscious because she knows that her intelligibility is low and her hearing friends have a hard
time understanding her. She is interested in a cochlear implant but doesn’t know much about
how they work. She really likes shopping and volleyball.
What are questions you have about her hearing/hearing technology?
 I would ask her what kind of hearing technology she has had in her life.
 I would ask what she knows about cochlear implants.
 I would ask how she does in school in the classroom and when she is out shopping or
playing volleyball.
 Are your hearing aids comfortable?
What would you work on for auditory skill development?
 I would try some comprehension activities to see how well she can understand phrases
or questions I ask.
 I would conduct a ling sound test to see what she can distinguish.
 I would do word discrimination lists with 1, 2, and 3 syllable words where she must
identify how many syllables are in each word.
 I would also do a discrimination of sentence length as well as sentence lists where she
must identify the sentence I asked for.
 Test her articulation to help with her overall intelligibility.
What would you work on for speech-language development—remember to be functional?
 Since she enjoys shopping, I would do different activities where we practice what she
would say shopping such as asking for a changing room, asking for a different size, etc.
 I would also practice what she might say during a volleyball game to her teammates.
What phrases are most common that they say during a game?
 I might also practice having her read some books aloud so that she can practice saying
different words correctly.
 I would try to have her tell me about her day and estimate her intelligibility to see what
sounds she seems to struggle with more.
How would caregivers be involved?
 I would have her parents try some of the different activities we do at therapy at home
such as practicing phrases and how she sounds when she says them.

I would ask them to have Samantha repeat words when she is talking if it is hard for
them to understand and have them walk through with her to say the word better.
What resources would you share?
 I would have them talk with other families who have undergone the procedure and have
Samantha talk with him about their experience.
 I would find articles about cochlear implants and have the parents and Samantha read
through them to see if this would be a good option for her.
What would interprofessional collaboration look like?
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I would have them speak with the audiologist to discuss the option of a cochlear
implant.
I would have the audiologist explain what a CI is and why it is different from a hearing
aid.
Post-lecture reflection:
 I feel confident with this one. I think I gathered decent information and knew good
activities to do with Samantha.
 I did think the GFTA test was good to add though because that could really help us
narrow down to help her with intelligibility. We could find certain sounds that maybe
aren’t as clear and work with that to have her nail down the correct sound especially if
she considers more into getting the CI.