Research Overview
Dr. Bonino is clinically trained as a pediatric audiologist, has practiced as an educational audiologist, and is a researcher in the area of developmental psychoacoustics. Her laboratory, the Children’s Auditory Perception Laboratory (ChAPL), studies human auditory development using methods from the fields of psychoacoustics, speech perception, and pediatric audiology. The primary research effort in the laboratory is to examine changes in auditory development between 2 to 5 years of age on tasks that are believed to be highly related to speech and language abilities. A secondary research line is to understand why some children have more difficulty listening in noise than other children. Research being performed by ChAPL is of clinical significance because it will improve the ability of health professionals and educators to assess and treat children who are at risk for listening difficulty or speech/language delays because of immature or atypical auditory functioning. Moreover, understanding the trajectory of typical auditory development will allow clinicians to better manage children with hearing loss.