VRA - first stimulus - Barney Music!

First VRA stimulus - Barney Music calibrated through Audiometer!

I learned this from another pediatric audiologist - Thanks Meg Gunther! (Meg learned this from someone else, but I do not recall) - and have used this for years with nearly 100% success. Others who have tried this are always amazed, wishing they had been doing this longer.

After making a connection with the child 1st, and then parents in our play waiting room (thank you Dr. Charles Berlin for literally doing your magic with children in the waiting room on their arrival!), instructing parent on VRA protocol (not cluing child), the first stimulus the child hears in the booth is 20 dBHL of Barney Theme music (rather than the old style live voice - "Look here baby!" or "Baa, baa, baa!"). It is best if the music starts almost immediately after the child is seated and the booth door closed quickly before the child gets restless. That is why I give any parental instructions and take history before we even get to the booth door. If a child is crying turn up the music to about 35 - 40dBHL - this will usually get the child's attention and quiet her/him so you can reduce the stimulus and proceed with testing.

Most young children who are cognitively 6 mos of age and up to about 3 years (especially children who appear to be on the autism spectrum), love this, respond immediately, and quickly learn the VRA task this way. In fact, if you have calibrated the music via the VU meter on your diagnostic audiometer, many children will even respond down to 5 or 10dBHL. Typically I do this sound-field initially and yes, our annual calibration includes sound-field calibration.

Not only have you made a child happy with their 1st booth experience, you have also just obtained an SAT (to music instead of live voice), and young children will then typically generalize to the next stimulus. I quickly go from the music to 6000Hz narrow band noise and move on from there . . . .

One other caveat: don't make your VRA animals dance - turn that off - and only use the lighted part of the reinforcement at 1st. I can't tell you how many parents over the years have told me their child freaked out over the clapping/dancing animals 'at the other place' their child was tested. So, if a child has established that he/she is already very happy with the lighted-only component of the animal reinforcers and is getting bored, perhaps you can then consider turning on the dancing component a few milli-seconds soon after the light reinforcement is already turned on. Even this still may startle a previously happy child - wouldn't it be best to choose the few children with whom you use the moving/dancing/noisy VRA animal component carefully, after you've seen their response to the quiet, visual-only reinforcers?

Hopefully you will eventually get more than one or two reinforcement boxes, including a box or two that allows for different lighting arrangements. I.E., the more variety you have in your array, the longer you are likely to keep the child interested and responding.

This tip, using an stacked array of visual reinforcers, I gleaned from Judy Gravel's publications, talks and video demonstrations. Judy passed away in December 2008 and is dearly missed. I trust we all will continue to honor her inspirations by example, her enthusiasm and willingness to widely share her knowledge and clinical expertise, as well as her advocacy for high standards in pediatric care.

Here's what you will need or some similar arrangement to set up the music stimuli:

• I bought the Barney's Favorites theme music CD
• Have used various standard CD-players at different locations with no problem
  
• A Radio Shack splitter cable that goes from the earphone output of the CD player to the A & B input on the diagnostic audiometer (one jack on the CD-player end, two on the audiometer end)
  
• Turn on the CD and music, adjust the volume on the CD-player and the A and/or B channel you use with the audiometer's VU meter so that the VU centers around 0 (not much over 0) when the music is playing
  
• Turn up the audiometer output to 45 or 50dBHL and go listen in the booth to make sure the music is not distorted (a mismatch between the volume on the CD-player and audiometer). If there is a mismatch, the music will sound distorted or spiky. The solution is to turn down the volume on the CD-player and turn up the output adjust on the audiometer again until it centers around 0 on the audiometers VU. Remember these volume settings on the CD-player and your VU adjust, so it stays that way each day or check them each morning. Some CD-players need to warm up a good bit before the music will be heard, so once turned on, leave the CD-player on or pause it. (tip: if our power goes out in a storm, the volume on one of my CD-players is no longer set like it was.)
  

Stay tuned - I am working on some norms with another colleague, David Pillsbury, so that you maybe able to use narrow-band/filtered music stimuli for those children who do not generalize from the 'full-banana' of the Barney music to narrow-band noise or warble tones. Think about it, in the old days, my understanding is that narrow-band noise was created by filtering white noise - now we create it digitally. So why not filter music centered around 500Hz, 1000Hz, 2000Hz, 3000Hz, 4000Hz and create a "narrow-band/filtered music" audiogram? It actually works, we just want to make sure we have some good norms so when we share this with you, all you will have to do is zero a cal-tone on the 1st band of the CD or digital file, so that you will know that each of the narrow bands of music are calibrated as well. As busy clinicians this is taking us some time to get to. In addition, the filtered 3000Hz and 4000Hz does not seem as identifiable to some children as music . . . again, will let you know when this is ready to share.

Baby steps first: in the meantime, as my wife says, "Go play!", see if we are right, go get a CD-player, set some Barney music up with your audiometer, try it and enjoy your success with music as the 1st stimuli young children condition to.