Hans-Rainer Kurz
Director of Education- and Knowledge Management, HörGut GmbH
Hans-Rainer Kurz is optician, Hearing Aid Audiologist and hearing therapist. He was active as inventor, lecturer and specialist author, and founded the Elterninitiative hörgeschädigter Kinder Ostfriesland e.V. (parents’ initiative for children with impaired hearing in East Frisia). He was involved in ProAkustik as the “father of the patented Hörpunkt [audiopoint] concept”, and made a name for himself in the context of pilot projects conducted in co-operations with various universities in Germany, for instance concerning hearing aid adjustments for cats and dogs, and public projects such as the Lions Club’s aid project “Help for Little Ears.” In 2004, he received the Melvin- Jones- Fellowship-Award from Lions Foundation World President, Dr. TAE-SUP LEE (Japan), in recognition of his social commitment. Mr. Kurz is owner of worldwide audiology patents.
Lecture:
From hearing development, to psychoacoustics, to helping little ears
This neurobiological information session will focus on hearing development, from prenatal signal recognition by the foetus to the critical period for language acquisition during the child’s first two years. This early stage has a decisive impact on whether the child will suffer from hearing difficulties.
The multimedia forum will concentrate on the impact of hearing aids and cochlea implants, and there will also be a lecture on how language skills that began to develop in the first two years, but which have since been lost, can be retrained if it is clear that the patient responds to acoustic stimuli. If there is time, we will also look at how to recondition signal recognition in patients who suffer from perceiving unpleasant sounds (e.g. those with tinnitus).
At the end of the session, the Lions Foundation will present the Hilfe für kleine Ohren (Help for Little Ears) initiative, which was launched across Germany in May 2009.