Assessing Middle Ear Function in Infants

About The Authors

Joseph Kei, PhD, MAudSA, CCP, is Associate Professor and Head of the Division of Audiology and Director of the Hearing Research Unit for Children, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Queensland, Australia. He received a Postgraduate Diploma in Special Education (Hearing Impairment) at the Burwood State College in 1982 and Postgraduate Diploma in Audiology at the University of Melbourne in 1983. From 1984 to 1994, he worked as an educational audiologist at the Special Education Section of the Hong Kong Education Department. Since 1994, he has been working at the University of Queensland. He obtained his PhD at the same university in 1998. His research interests include middle ear assessments in newborns and young infants, diagnostic assessments using otoacoustic emissions, and auditory evoked responses, high frequency auditory function in children and speech perception. He has published over 68 scientific journal articles and presented over 43 papers at national and international conferences including keynote and plenary addresses. He is an editorial board member of three international journals.

Fei Zhao, MD, PhD, is Centre Director and Senior Lecturer in Audiology at the Centre for Hearing and Balance Studies, University of Bristol, United Kingdom. Dr Zhao’s research over the past 15 years has focused on the development of sensitized and reliable measures for detecting the middle ear disorders and cochlear dysfunction. He received his Ph.D. at Welsh Hearing Institute, University of Wales College of Medicine in 1998. Dr. Zhao had his postdoctoral training in the Bioengineering Department, Tohoku University, Japan, and the Physical Acoustics Laboratory, Boys Town National Research Hospital, USA. He has important contributions in several research projects, including clinical application of the Sweep Frequency Impedance meter (SFI) in measuring the middle ear dynamic characteristics of patients with middle ear disorders, as well as preliminary development of wideband energy tympanometry (WBT). He is also interested in other research areas, including many aspects of improvements in health and well-being, together with psychosocial elements and the impact of hearing impairment on people. Dr Zhao’s research outputs have a high national and international profile. His work has been published regularly in key international journals in the Audiological field as well as other healthcare related fields.