Two Macquarie University students received awards at the Audiology Australia National Conference, which was held in Sydney 20-23 May, 2018.
Mariana Reis, PhD candidate at Macquarie University supported by the HEARing CRC, received an award for best poster.
Mariana’s poster presented part of her PhD study which rigorously investigates the effectiveness of computer-based auditory training for adult cochlear implant users.
The study results showed that although participants’ performance improved during the auditory training program, these improvements did not transfer to speech understanding tasks that were assessed outside the training program, in the laboratory. Auditory training also did not have an effect on participants’ cognitive abilities, such as attention and memory, nor on listening abilities as reported by participants.
These findings indicate that considerations should be made before adult cochlear implant users invest in auditory training.
More details about the protocol used in the study can be found on: https://doi.org/10.1186/ISRCTN98523729
Rakshita Gokula, Macquarie University Linguistics HDR student, supported by the HEARing CRC, and supervised by Mridula Sharma, received an award for best Power Point Presentation for her work titled ‘Factor analysis of the skills encompassing auditory and cognitive abilities of 8 to 11 year-olds’.
The presentation was made under the Laurie Upfold Award section which was made available by the generous donation from Laurie Upfold to encourage new and young presenters at the conference. Rakshita, amongst a panel of 12 speakers, won the award.”
