Pediatric Amplification: Enhancing Auditory Access

About The Authors

Ryan W. McCreery, PhD, is the Director of Research, the Director of Audiology, and the Director of the Audibility, Perception, and Cognition Laboratory at Boys Town National Research Hospital. Dr. McCreery’s research focuses on the effects of amplification on perception and cognition in children who are hard of hearing. He has had funding from the National Institutes of Health to support his research, including working as a coinvestigator with Dr. Walker on the Outcomes of Children With Hearing Loss, Outcomes of School-Age Children Who Are Hard of Hearing, and Complex Listening in School-Age Hard of Hearing Children studies. Dr. McCreery received the Early Career Contributions to Research Award from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. He has taught courses in aural rehabilitation and pediatric audiology. Dr. McCreery received his Bachelor of Arts degrees in Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology from the University of Northern Colorado (2000) and his Master of Science in Audiology (2002) and PhD (2011) in Human Sciences from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

Elizabeth A. Walker, PhD, CCC-A/SLP, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Iowa. Dr. Walker is a dually certified speech-language pathologist and audiologist. Her research focuses on pediatric aural habilitation, specifically examining malleable factors that relate to individual differences in speech perception and language outcomes for children who are deaf or hard of hearing. She is an investigator on multiple grants funded by the National Institutes of Health, including the Outcomes of Children With Hearing Loss, Outcomes of School-Age Children Who Are Hard of Hearing, and Complex Listening in School-Age Hard of Hearing Children studies. She has taught courses in aural rehabilitation, developmental language disorders, and educational audiology. Dr. Walker received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Iowa (1999), her Master of Arts from the University of Minnesota (2002), and her PhD from the University of Iowa (2010).