Facilitating Hearing and Listening in Young Children. (2nd ed., 1999). By Carol Flexer. Singular Publishing Group, Inc., 401 West A St., Suite 325, San Diego, CA 92101-7904. 310 pages, $55.95. Reviewed by Colleen M. O'Rourke, Georgia State University, Atlanta.

The Early Childhood Intervention Series, edited by M. Jeanne Wilcox, is a set of five books that target early intervention personnel. The series is written to provide families, teachers, classroom assistants, speech-language pathologists (SLPs), and audiologists with an understanding of current theoretical and empirical information and its practical application to early intervention. The focus of this book is educational audiology and auditory-based learning strategies for infants and young children.

The book begins with a discussion of the role of hearing in language development and learning and gives the reader a checklist of auditory behaviors observed in infants from birth through 18 months of age. The author then reviews characteristics of sound, anatomy of the ear, and the types and causes of hearing loss, with special emphasis on otitis media. The chapter on hearing assessment in young children includes descriptions of both behavioral and electrophysiologic measurements. The longest chapter is devoted to hearing aids and assistive listening devices. The author also reviews the federal laws that mandate services to children with hearing loss and then ends the book with strategies for facilitating hearing and listening in all children.

The topics included in this book are appropriate and pertinent to the target audience of early interventionists. The content is logical in sequence, and the figures and appendices in several chapters could be particularly helpful to families and professionals (e.g., Information a Teacher or Parent Can Provide to Facilitate the Measurement of Hearing, Summary of Hearing Aids, etc.). The drawback to this book is that it attempts to reach a goal that is unattainable by any author in a single book. No author can effectively reach a readership that includes parents, teachers, SLPs, and audiologists when attempting to present complex and technical information. The background and training of these individuals is too diverse. Parents and most teachers will not have the depth and breadth of knowledge in speech-language and hearing terminology and technology that is needed to understand much of what is written in this book. This is not to say that they do not need this information. They certainly do, but they need it presented in a manner and at a level that is different from speech-language and hearing professionals.

I would recommend this book to professionals and students in speech-language pathology and audiology who currently are providing-or who plan on providing-early intervention services. It would be a valuable resource for them when working with families and other professionals and developing programs for young children.