When Brooklyn Hytrek, a second-year student in the clinical doctorate in audiology (Au.D.) program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, saw the suggestions for possible capstone projects she jumped at the opportunity to develop a support group for cochlear implant (CI) users.
As part of the Au.D. program, students are required to complete a research study and accompanying paper for their capstone project. Some of those project ideas end up being passed down from third-year students headed to externships to first-year students to take over.
“One of the third-year students had started the implant support group and they didn’t really have a direction but instead were studying the general impact it could have on the members,” Hytrek said. “I saw an opportunity to refine that focus.”
The Casper, Wyoming, native had a particular interest in aural rehabilitation, which is used to help optimize and enhance auditory function in those who wear hearing aids or cochlear implants so they can better interpret the sound they hear through their devices. This allows the individuals to make better connections to speech and sound in their environment.
“For someone who hasn’t heard in a long time, getting a cochlear implant can feel a little overwhelming,” Hytrek said. “All of a sudden, they’re thrown back into a world of sound, and that adjustment can be a lot to take in. I saw that project as an opportunity to do some aural rehabilitation with the group and to see if that can help improve any CI outcomes within that support group.”
The group, which is open to any cochlear implant recipient, family member or interested students, plans to meet monthly at 10 a.m. on the second Saturday of the month. Its first meeting was held Sept. 13 at the Schmieding Foundation Academy for Hearing Healthcare in the Barkley Memorial Center on East Campus. Members shared their experiences and began to build connections.
“The hope is this research will show that adding aspects of aural rehabilitation into support groups can help individuals feel more confident in their ability to communicate with their implant, and that this finding can one day be generalized to other support groups for those with hearing loss.”
Besides her research focus on the impacts of aural rehabilitation with the CI group, Hytrek hopes participants build community with one another.
“One of the less spoken about aspects of hearing loss is social isolation,” Hytrek said. “It can be really difficult, especially for someone that has heard their whole lives and now is experiencing hearing loss, to come to terms with that and to be able to process that within their daily lives. And so, I think, one of the big goals of the support group for me at least is these people can talk to people who understand exactly what it is like to go through what they are going through.”
Hytrek created a Facebook page for the CI support group – Lincoln CI Support Group – to generate awareness and share information. It also allows her to plan for making the group sustainable beyond her time in the audiology program.
“That is definitely one of my goals is to make it easy to continue the group and to create that organizational structure in order for it to be taken over in the future.”
The next CI support group meeting is scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 11 at the Barkley Memorial Center. Anyone interested in joining the cochlear implant support group can visit the Facebook page or complete the interest form at go.unl.edu/ci-support.
College of Education and Human Sciences
Special Education and Communication Disorders
