Abstract The present study examined if early deaf people and people with severe hearing loss perceive visual information differently than hearing people. An experiment was conducted with eight deaf participants and eight participants with normal hearing. The participants were between the ages of 18-74 years. The participants were asked to look at fifteen different images portraying manipulated illusions, and then assess if the images were of the same size. Subsequently another image depicting a different illusion with a face hidden in it was presented to the participants.

Background: More than half of the elderly (65-84 years) in Sweden have problems with hearing. In some studiesit?s discussed if age related hearing loss or presbyacusis is a part of natural aging or if it depends on underlyingfactors.The purpose of this literature study was to analyse scientific papers which illustrate correlations between lessknown underlying factors and presbyacusis, defined from psychoacoustic and/or neurofysiological tests.Material and method; Literature study where scientific papers, relevant to the purpose of the study and thequestions at issue were found in the database PubMed.The result shows that cardiovascular disease, hormones, diet and drugs have an influence on presbyacusis. Thehealth condition of the individual and their lifestyle matters, likewise estrogen which according to the results of 2studies has a protective effect on hearing.Conclusion; The studies show that heart attack and high systolic blood pressure in women have a correlation topresbyacusis, but not in men, - the hormone estrogen, - some vitamins, antioxidants and diet have a protectiveeffect on hearing and studies show that smoking and alcohol have negative effects..

Audionomprogrammet.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how the special education, for children with language impairment in preschool, was organised in a municipality in Sweden. The study was based on interviews and field studies as the primary research tools in qualitative and ethnographic method. The result showed that special education teachers were localised in different geographic areas of school and that there were preschools that lacked special educational expertise in language impairment. Literature and the importance of playing for language development were emphasised as well as the use of signs and visual aids as augmentative and alternative communication. In the preschool for children with language impairment, the teachers carried their knowledge into practical and pedagogical work.

The project has been performed in a close collaboration with Hörsam who works in the field of hearing technology. In a first meeting with the company, the Project group was showed a few existing storage boxes for hearing aids. The company thought they were unnecessarily large with plenty of unused space and wanted a new, smarter solution to be developed.The project began with user studies in which audiologists, maintenance technicians, future users and others were interviewed. The purpose was to obtain their views on today's storage boxes and to find out how well the users maintained their hearing aids. It proved to be a large lack of knowledge regarding the management of hearing aids within the users.

Navigating to different locations isn?t always easy. Imagine then how it is for people with a visual impairment to walk across the street or to get from one point to another. The Swedish Association of the Visually Impaired (SRF) has pointed out that today's society is not sufficiently accessible to people with visual impairment and there are improvements that need to get done. Technology is something that has evolved a lot this last decade and occurs today almost everywhere in our environment.In some areas, technology has facilitated people's daily life very much and we have therefore chosen to examine whether a combination of several technical functions integrated into the fictive artifact called Eyenavster can facilitate outdoor orientation and increase the accessibility for people with a visual impairment.Qualitative data collection methods have been used in this study by six interviews to answer our question.

Hearing is considered to be the most important sense for the communication between people. Several studies have shown that hearing loss can lead to deterioration in quality of life, reduced social activities, feelings of alienation and hence the increasing incidence of depression symptoms.An early audiological rehabilitation is a prerequisite for proper communication among people with hearing loss. Knowledge has been shown to be of great importance and structured learning and individually targeted approach can be expected to facilitate the audiological rehabilitation.The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of an educational effort for people with hearing loss where the effort was made in the distance within the audiological rehabilitation and was followed-up by professional phone support, through a randomized controlled study.The study group consisted of 69 hearing aid users who were randomized by an independent person into two groups, an intervention group and a control group. The intervention group (n = 33) had access to the book "When the sounds are weaker - on hearing and hearing aids". The group received weekly topic-based information related to the different chapters of the book, in five rounds.

Following the implementation of IFRS with yearly impairment tests, the question of correlations and causalities between impairments and investors? decision making is gaining interest in academia. This essay will study the relationship between significant goodwill impairments, communicated on the Nasdaq OMX Stockholm webpage between the years 2005-2009, and the impact those announcements have had on investors? decision making. Furthermore, the causality behind the impairments will be in focus.

Background: Bone anchored hearing system is a surgically implantable system for treatment ofindividuals with hearing loss. The Softband is intended for patients who can benefit from a boneanchored hearing system but who are not yet suitable for implant surgery.Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate whether an adhesive bone conductor, Adjoin, canbe used as an alternative to Softband.Material and Method: Twenty adult subjects with normal hearing participated in the study.Measurement of functional gain and speech intelligibility was performed with Softband and Adjoinwhich then were compared. A questionnaire was answered by the participants after the measurementsthat treated their subjective experiences with each option.Results: The objective measurements yielded no overall difference between Softband and Adjoin forthe group studied. The subjective results showed differences in the perceived comfort as well as whichof the two bone conductors that would be preferred to use in everyday life, with Adjoin being thepreferred option. No difference was detected on participants perceived gain, sound quality and speechintelligibility.Conclusion: Based on the measured results, Adjoin seems to be a suitable alternative to Softband.However, there are questions about how Adjoin works with long-term use..

The purpose of this thesis is to determine how well a student is prepared as a future librarian at BHS in Borås, when it comes to serving individuals with hearing disabilities at the libraries. The theory and combined methods is that of discourse theory, interviews and Webb searches. The source material for this thesis comprises course material from 2002 and 2003, with the main focus on the spring term 2003 and on what is called the users perspective användarperspektivet. The study is divided into two parts: firstly, to determine the students expected knowledge and his/her future professional identity through this knowledge. The user groups that were mentioned to the students during the education were also linked to the students knowledge.

On 1 January 2005, IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards)was mandatory for all listed companies within the European Union. The introduction is to create a transparent and consistent reporting. Mainly to provide companies, investors and financiers the same access to world capital markets. Since the introduction of IFRS, the goodwill value is determined by annual impairment tests. If an impairment of goodwill is a fact the goodwill decreases in value.

Speech intervention for children with language impairment aims to both strengthen specific language skills and to reinforce the ability to participate in interactional contexts. Children with language impairment often have problems in interaction; therefore the contributions of the conversational partner are of great importance. Thus, the demands are high on the speech and language pathologist (SLP) for sense and cohesion in intervention. The aim of the present study was to examine how SLPs and children with language impairment interact in language intervention. An approach influenced by Conversation Analysis was used in order to identify various phenomena that occurred, and their effect on the structure of the interaction was analyzed.Four SLPs, two men and two women, were enrolled in the study.  They participated in intervention with two children with language impairment each, i.e.

Since January 1 2005 all companies listed on a regulated stock exchange within the EU are required to present their consolidated accounts in conformity with IFRS. Among many other consequences goodwill will no longer be amortized over its useful life but instead annually tested for impairments in accordance with IFRS 3. The aim of this paper is to scrutinize the impairment test of goodwill as outlined in IAS 36 and analyze its implications. We conclude that the impairment test will probably lead to the recognition of internally generated goodwill in the consolidated accounts. We also conclude that the impairment test on highly aggregated levels will probably hasten the pace of this recognition since internally generated goodwill is used to shield acquired goodwill from impairments.

Purpose: To examine the hearing environment for tattoo artists regarding occupational noiseand to see whether tattoo artists are exposed to hazardous noise according to Swedish WorkEnvironment Authority regulations. Method: Using a dosimeter we measured a total ofseven sessions of approximately one hour on seven different subjects, located on five studiosin Gothenburg. As a complement we did also hand out surveys based on twelve questions toexamine habits, experienced sound environment and to see if there were any hearing relatedpatterns. Results:. Sound level measurements showed that the lower exposure action valueLpAeq,8h 80 dB(A) in one case was reached if applied to the average working time of sixhours.

KKS includes difficulties hearing speech in background noise although results from pure toneaudiometry are normal. The condition is also called ?Obscure Audiotory Dysfunction? and?Auditory disability with normal hearing?. KKS affects a heterogeneous group. We believethere is a need for synthesis of existing studies to acknowledge the condition in Sweden toimprove rehabilitation for the affected individuals.