By Andrea Reed, Au.D., M.Ed., Western Washington University
As part of the Western Washington University’s Audiology Doctorate program (Au.D.), the Hearing Clinic is one branch of the Speech-Language and Hearing Clinics on Western’s campus. The clinics operate on a donation-based, no-fee clinic model which allows a diagnostic freedom that would otherwise be restricted with billing and insurance reimbursement, as well as increases patient access.
Because we don’t use billing as a revenue generator, there are so many community needs that the clinic can meet: minoritized populations, our relationship with Indian Health Services, patients with financial need, and more! The primary focus of our clinic is to serve the education and experiences of our graduate students, and so they have many more opportunities to explore a wider range of diagnostic and treatment services.
Our graduate student clinicians are working towards their 4-year degree in a clinical audiology doctorate. During their first two years in the program, they are assigned clinical rotations in a variety of appointment types in the Hearing Clinic, supervised by licensed and certified audiologists. Through their clinical experiences, they are able to learn a wide range of diagnostic treatment practices. In their 3rd year, they spend two days a week at an off-site clinic continuing to develop their skills, culminating in a full-time fourth year externship where they are practicing as audiologists all over the country. Therefore, our teaching clinic is designed to prepare them for the experiences and challenges they may face working out in the real world. This always drives our instructional decision-masking; it is why we strive to provide the depth and breadth of clinical knowledge at the Hearing Clinic.
For example, at the Hearing Clinic, we not only see adults for hearing evaluations and hearing aid services, but we also offer pediatric hearing evaluations, tinnitus evaluations, cochlear implant candidacy evaluations and programming, osseo-integrated device services, comprehensive balance assessments, auditory processing disorder evaluations, newborn diagnostic evaluations, and auditory evoked potential testing! And it doesn’t stop there!
With a holistic approach in mind, we can counsel patients on hearing loss, provide patient-centered care and decision-making, and offer unbiased and research backed recommendations for all our patients—regardless of their circumstances, healthcare coverage, or financial status. As for hearing aids, we work with all the brand name manufacturers and provide options for patients to purchase devices directly from our clinic, which in turn supports our no-fee clinical model. Our clinical educators are also exceptional experts in their field. Both clinical audiologists as well as faculty teach students as supervisors in the clinic. We are very fortunate to have teaching audiologists with a wide scope of experience and competencies.
Through our Aural Rehabilitation clinic, we provide services for adults and children. Specifically, individual and group auditory training and communication support for those who use hearing aids and/or implantable devices, family-centered individual listening, language, and literacy therapy for children who are deaf or hard of hearing, specialized comprehensive communication assessment for children who are deaf or hard of hearing, and consultation to school teams, individuals, and agencies.
Our Hearing Aid Bank program another feature of the Hearing Clinic. It is designed to provide exceptional service and hearing aids to those in the community. Financial donations as well as donations of usable hearing aids and associated products from individuals, community audiologists, and organizations (like HLAA!) are accepted and then cleaned, verified, and reprogrammed to meet the individualized needs of any patient. Student clinicians engaged with the Hearing Aid Bank are able to reflect on and practice cultural humility and investigate their own ideas of patient-centered care when financial barriers are removed from working with hearing aids.
Audiology student groups, like the Western Washington University Student Academy of Audiology (SAA), often visit the HLAA Northwest Chapter meetings as members, and as presenters with interesting topics like communication strategies, working with hearing aid accessories, the emotional and psychological effects of hearing loss, and more! These visits provide valuable opportunities for students to learn directly from the lived experiences of people while also supporting an important goal for our chapter: student development and continuing education. Our students love collaborating with the community in other ways, too. We provide hearing screenings to rural areas, run fundraising events, and provide other outreach opportunities that help expand access to hearing healthcare.
Recently, our clinic was featured in the Fall/Winter 2025 issue of Western’s Window, a magazine published quarterly for alumni. The article, “The Science of Speech and Sound,” shared insights from clinic directors, students, and patients served by the Speech-Language and Hearing Clinic and was an exciting presentation of all there is to appreciate about the work we do. To read the article, or watch a short video exclusively about the hearing clinic, visit this link.
We are very proud of our graduate clinicians and the clinics which hone and stretch their skills. It is an exciting and rewarding privilege not only to help patients in enhancing their communication but also training the next generation of qualified and compassionate audiologists.
If you would like to support us in our mission, please consider donating to our program!
About Our Guest Author
Andrea Reed, Au.D., M.Ed., began as a Clinical Educator in the Audiology Doctorate Program in 2018. In 2022, she graduated from Western’s Adult/Higher Education master’s program and started working as a faculty and Hearing Clinic director shortly thereafter in 2023. As a clinical Audiologist supervising graduate clinicians in the Hearing and Aural Rehabilitation Clinics, she specializes in adult and pediatric diagnostics, balance assessments, and hearing aid counseling and programming.
Andrea also serves as co-chair for the Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences Department’s Diversity, Equity, and Justice Committee.