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Research Round-up the Ewing Auditory Research (EAR) team Research round-up places a spotlight on new and interesting projects happening across major hearing and balance research institutions around the world. This edition of Audacity focuses on work being carried out by the Ewing Auditory Research team led by Professor Kevin Munro at the University of Manchester.
Kevin J Munro Ewing Professor of Audiology
Who were the Ewings? It is almost 100 years since Sir Alexander and Lady Irene Ewing, from the University of Manchester, introduced the fundamental concepts of what we now call ‘paediatric audiology’. Their pioneering work has influenced professionals throughout the world. Irene R Ewing, received an OBE in the King’s birthday honours list in 1944 and Alexander GW Ewing was knighted in the 1959 New Year’s honours list.The Ewings recognised the importance of linking: i) research, ii) education and iii) practice, a characteristic we strive to emulate in our EAR Team today. I was delighted to be able to say a little about their work, in my capacity as Ewing Professor of Audiology, at a recent evening reception in the House of Lords.
Importance of early identification and intervention
Importance of early involvement of the family
Procedures for hearing assessment in infants
The Ewing legacy: the fundamental concepts of paediatric audiology
Who are the ‘EAR Team’? The audiology activities at the University of Manchester are extensive and cover the compete lifespan.This article provides an overview of the current research activity that is carried out by the researchers and PhD students with whom I work most closely and who share the same vision of improving the lives of adults and children who have a hearing disorder. Much of our work is carried out in the Ewing Auditory Research lab and, since I am the Ewing Professor of Audiology, we like to refer to ourselves, informally, as the ‘EAR Team’. In reality, the EAR Team is only one small part of the audiology research activity in Manchester although we do have an extensive network of collaborators including the Manchester Academic Health Science Centre, a partnership that
research round-up
unites NHS clinicians with researchers in order to provide patients and clinicians with rapid access to the latest research discoveries. We also collaborate with a wide range of researchers within the UK (e.g., Professor Deb Hall and Dr Heather Fortnum, Nottingham Hearing Biomedical Research Unit; Professor Mark Lutman, University of Southampton; Professor Adrian Davis, UCL) as well as overseas (e.g., Professor David Moore at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Centre; Professor Suzanne Purdy at the University of Auckland; Professor Karen Cruickshanks, University of Wisconsin). What do we do? We have a wide range of teaching, research, clinical and administrative responsibilities with several of us involved
in many professional activities. Our research spans the continuum from: i) increasing our understanding of the normal and disordered auditory system, through to ii) translational projects that have the potential to transform audiology, and finally iii) applied clinical research. Although the currency of success in an academic environment is typically measured in terms of research outputs in highimpact, peer-reviewed journals, our work has had most real world impact when the findings have been incorporated into our education and training programmes for audiologists and related health care professions. More recently, we have been using the BSA ‘Lunch and Learn’ seminars to bring some of our work (e.g., placebo effects in hearing aid trials, population-