Today and future of the Swedish Audiology program Petra Herrlin Director of undergraduate studies Division of Audiology Dept. of clinical science, intervention and technology Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden Bad Zwischenahn, Germany - January 2008

Background   Stepwise development since the 70-ies   Bachelor (3-year) programs since 1995   Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm   University of Gothenburg   University of Örebro   Swedish Master programs (total 4 years)   University of Lund since 1995   Other universities 1-2 year available in different Master programs open for audiologists   Includes a Master thesis in Audiology (30 ECTS credits)   Ph.D. programs - 4 years   Few students - but growing   ≈ 10 audiologists in Sweden have a Ph.D. today   All audiologists are clinically trained   There are approx. 900 audiologists in Sweden

Main aims  Competence and knowledge to work in any area connected with hearing.  Integration of medicine, technology, and behavioural sciences  Optimising relation between hearing, hearing technology and communication  with regards to the patient’s individual needs.

The 3 parts of Audiology  Medical audiology  Technical audiology  Behavioural audiology  and related subjects

Medical audiology  Audiological medicine  Hearing diagnostics  Neurology and neuropsychology

Technical audiology  Physics and acoustics  Signal theory  Auditory perception  Hearing aid technology  Technical hearing rehabilitation

Behavioural audiology  Hearing handicap  Psychology  Counselling  Adult education and learning  Behavioural aspects of audiology  Habilitation

Related subjects  Linguistics and phonetics  Statistics  Research methods and scientific theory  Thesis work in one of the main subjects

Clinical training  Approx. one semester in total (22 ECTS credits, divided over the 3 years)  Training under supervision at a hearing clinic  Diagnostics  Rehabilitation  Education  Students are evaluated by  Supervisor evaluation  Self evaluation  Clinical examination

Future developments  Has been adjusted to the Bologna process  Bachelor program - 3 years  Master program – 1 or 2 years  PhD program - 4 years  Increase the master and research programs  Network  Co-operation between universities needed  Discussion are going on between Stockholm, Lund, Gothenburg and Örebro about how master courses can be developed together