Developing professional competencies such as empathy, counseling, and communication is an essential yet often underemphasized aspect of audiology education. Traditional instruction may provide theoretical knowledge but limited opportunity for experiential practice in emotionally charged clinical situations, such as delivering bad news to patients and families....
✦ The floor
Discussion
Signed responses from readers of the wire.
No immediate practice change for clinicians; findings are preliminary and apply to audiology education program design rather than direct patient care.
Simulation-based education is gaining traction across health professions, and this pilot RCT provides early evidence for its role in developing audiology students' soft skills alongside technical competencies.
- 01Pilot randomized study — results are preliminary and should be interpreted cautiously pending larger trials.
- 02Simulation-based training targeted non-technical skills: empathy, counseling, and communication.
- 03Randomized design strengthens internal validity compared to typical before-after education studies.
- 04Relevant primarily for audiology program directors and clinical educators, not frontline clinicians.
- 05Published in JAAA 2026, signaling growing academic interest in audiology education research.
Simulation-based training improves audiology students' professional competencies including empathy, counseling, and communication skills.
studypartially supported- PMID
- 42763569
- DOI
- 10.3766/jaaa.250114.
- Journal
- Journal of the American Academy of Audiology
- Publication type
- research_article
- Evidence level
- 1b
- Population
- Audiology students in a clinical training program
- Intervention
- Simulation-based training targeting empathy, counseling, and communication skills
- Comparator
- Standard audiology training (control group)
Primary outcomes
Empathy scores; Counseling skill competency; Communication skill competency
