Everyday Hearing Loss Effects What You Can Do

What do you know about how your hearing loss effects are influencing your life? If you have difficulty with your hearing and it has become a noticeable issue for you, your family, or your friends, chances are its time to get a hearing test. An audiologist will evaluate your hearing and plot the results on an audiogram

The Audiogram An audiogram is the graph that audiologists use to record your test responses. The graph below is an example of a standard audiogram showing frequency (horizontal axis) and intensity (vertical axis). Frequency is related to pitch. The audiogram shows your ability to hear low (125-500 Hz), mid (750-2000 Hz), or high (3000-8000 Hz) pitch sounds. Hearing level (HL) in decibels (dB) refers to how soft or how loud sounds are to a person. Zero (0) dB is considered to be the optimum level for hearing.

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American Speech and Hearing Association. The Audiogram. (ASHA; 2011). Retrieved from http://www.asha.org/public/hearing/Audiogram/

On the vertical axis, loudness/intensity in decibels (dB) is plotted from soft at the top of the audiogram to very loud at the bottom. On the horizontal axis, pitch/frequency in Hertz (Hz) is plotted from low pitches on the left to high pitches on the right. Where your results are plotted on the audiogram will indicate your degree of hearing loss. Hearing loss categories are also provided to the right of the graph in the sample audiogram provided. These categories explain the severity of your hearing loss. Normal hearing falls in the range of (0-15 dB); Slight loss in the range of 16-25 dB; Mild loss in the range of 26-40 dB; Moderate loss in the range of 41-55 dB; Moderately-severe loss
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in the range of 56-70 dB; Severe loss in the range of 71-90 dB; and Profound loss in the range of 90 dB and above. Some professionals will combine the normal and slight loss categories (0-25 dB) into a normal hearing category, as many people do not experience much difficulty with communication with a 15-25 dB hearing loss.

Your Hearing Your hearing may not fall into a single category. One ear may hear better than the other. You may hear better at some pitches than others. The important thing is for you to understand how these results can affect your everyday communication and what options are available to help. Ask your hearing healthcare provider to be candid with your hearing test results, so that you may fully understand and be ready to take action to make your hearing life change for the better! While an audiogram will show what the severity of your hearing loss is. It does not truly explain how this may impact your life. The impact your hearing difficulty has on understanding speech will vary based on the severity of the loss. A person with a mild loss may miss up to half of a group conversation. A moderate to severe hearing loss may impair the ability to comprehend conversation with a person who is more than 5 feet away from you. A person with severe hearing loss may only be able to hear sounds (even if they are loud) if they are in close proximity. A profound hearing loss may cause total reliance on visual cues to understand communication. It is not typical, however, for the severity of your loss to be the same across different pitches. Many people have greater hearing loss at higher pitches. Persons with this type of loss will have
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more difficulty with distinguishing consonant sounds like ssssss for S and tuh for T. This can cause confusion between words (e.g., pop versus top or sleep versus sweep) creating increased difficulty with understanding. Some people have greater hearing loss at lower pitches. These persons will lose more of their vowel sounds, which give loudness to speech. Therefore, everyone will seem much softer when they speak. Those with flat hearing losses, having equal loss across all pitches, will have difficulty with consonant differentiation and loudness.

What can I do? Thankfully, technology is ever-changing and advancing, making the options available to those with hearing loss better than ever before. Hearing aids, cochlear implants, and other assistive listening devices are available to persons with all combinations of hearing loss. Discuss your personal options with your audiologist. They can help steer you in the direction to improve your hearing health life. Take your hearing loss effects and throw them away!

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Audiology & Hearing Aid Center (480) 648-2042