Honors Week: Cadet Completes Work on App

Parents of newborns often struggle to understand the needs of their baby. How often should they eat? How long should they sleep? How does one know if they are sick? So, it isn’t unusual for parents of babies with hearing impairments to be confused. Col. James Squire, professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Military Institute, was faced with that very issue 25 years ago when his oldest son was born and diagnosed with a hearing disorder.

Squire’s first thought as a new parent was, “What was the world like that he was experiencing?” Squire and his wife were given an audiogram, but they didn’t know what it meant. Thankfully, his son’s hearing disorder was a misdiagnosis, but it inspired Squire to begin research to help young parents of children with hearing loss. “I thought it would make a good honors project for cadets. I was wrong. It made a terrible single honors project, but it made three really good honors projects because there was so much background work with theoretical development, open-source work, working with audiologists, and figuring out how to get programs that could be used practically by the audiology community.”  

Work on the project has spanned over nine years and began with Will Flathers ’09, who primarily focused on filtering audio. Binh Tran ’23 continued with the project and created an open-source sampling frequency filter. Tran won an award for his contribution at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Southeast Regional Conference two years ago.

Cole Bowyer ’25, who took up the mantle as the third honors student to work on the endeavor, placed the capstone on the project in his presentation, “Audiogram Emulator,” a free app available to parents that allows them to hear as their child hears.  

Bowyer explained that roughly 9,000 children are born each year in the United States with some type of hearing impairment, and only half of those children receive treatment.

“If a child does not receive any treatment before the age of 1, it’s shown to significantly hurt his ability to learn in the education system and keep up with his peers,” he said.  

Why do parents not seek treatment? Bowyer believes there are several reasons. “For one, parents do not want a label attached to their child. Second, often the child can hear sounds and react, so his parents think he is hearing properly, but he’s not. Since his hearing is impaired, he is not receiving a true understanding of what is being said. And third, parents may not understand hearing loss and its ramifications.”  

In his research, Bowyer consulted with many professionals in their respective field including Lindsey Richard, Au.D., CCC-A, educational audiologist at The Virginia School for the Deaf and the Blind in Staunton. “She provided helpful feedback on how to improve the app. Without her, I don’t think that we would have been able to make the best possible app.”   

Squire and the three cadets who developed the app have no intention of profiting from their work. “We want it easily assessable and free to parents so they will fully grasp how their child hears, and increase the chances of the child getting medical help,” stated Bowyer. The app can be downloaded from the Squire’s website.  

Bowyer will present the project at the IEEE Southeast Regional Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina. His hope in the future is that the app will be commonly used by audiologists and other medical professionals  

Bowyer is an electrical and computer engineering major from Daleville, Virginia, where he attended Lord Botetourt High School. He is the son of Tara Tice and Sheldon Bowyer. Following graduation, he will work for AECOM in Roanoke.