.jpg "Brent Spehar, PhD photo")
Research Scientist / Instructor
Washington University School of Medicine
Financial Disclosures: clEAR: Customized Listening Exercises for Aural Rehabilitation- Ownership Interest includes stock, stock options, patent or other intellectual property
Non-Financial Disclosures: I do not have any relevant non-financial relationships with anything to disclose.
Dr Spehar specializes in the development of highly calibrated auditory and audiovisual stimuli, programming, and applications for visual, audio, audiovisual speech perception assessment and auditory training programs. To date, contributions include the development and programming assessment material, data collection procedures, games, and automatic voice recording systems used in the auditory training lab at Washington University in St Louis.
Dr Spehar has a broad background in Audiology and Speech & Hearing Science that spans from fitting hearing aids in both clinical and research settings to electrophysiology (ABR and ECochG) in a research setting, to employment as a sign language interpreter. With over 20 years of experience as a research audiologist and research scientist at the Central Institute for the Deaf in St. Louis and in the Department of Otolaryngology at Washington University School of Medicine, he has a great deal of expertise in hearing-related issues. He also has a great deal of experience developing and/or programming computer-based research projects that involve highly calibrated audio, visual, and audiovisual presentations of speech, including novel perception tests and training programs for adults and children at the Central Institute for the Deaf. In his personal experiences with a Deaf brother, he is familiar with the trials that go with miscommunications and the consequences of which often have compounding effects throughout life. He is interested in contributing to any initiative that seeks to reduce the communication barrier caused by hearing loss and helps to improve the lives of persons with hearing impairment and to promoting their chances of becoming engaged and productive members of society.