The majority of people aren’t proactive about the health of their hearing and likely haven’t had a hearing test since grade school because it’s usually not part of a routine adult physical. Luckily, a professional hearing specialist can uncover a wealth of information from a hearing test which can be used to both identify any hearing loss and help assess whether utilizing treatments like hearing aids is effective.
You may not get a lollipop after your full audiometry test, which is more involved than you probably remember from your childhood, but you will get a greater understanding of the health of your hearing. There are three prevalent types of hearing tests, each of which will provide different perspectives about your hearing.
Pure tone testing
One factor that we use to measure sound is the intensity or loudness which is measured in decibels (dB). Tone, what we conversationally think of as pitch, is another key factor. At the lower end of the tone spectrum, a low bass sound measures between 50 and 60 Hertz (Hertz, or Hz for short, is the unit of measurement related to tone or pitch), with normal speech ranging between 500 and 3,000 Hz. 20 to 20,000 Hz is the spectrum of frequencies that a healthy human ear is able to hear.
With a pure tone hearing test, your hearing specialist will have you put on a set of headphones which are hooked up to an audiometer. Another device that your hearing specialist might use is known as a bone oscillator which simply measures how well sound is conducted by your bones. Pure tones are delivered to one ear at a time, and you signal (by pushing a button or raising a hand) when you hear a sound.
We’ll track the lowest volume required for you to hear each sound. Whether your hearing loss is more marked on one side than the other, what frequency of sound you have the most trouble hearing, and generally how well your ears are functioning, will be gauged by this test.
Speech audiometry
This test also uses headphones, but instead tracks your ability to hear words being spoken. Your hearing specialist will sometimes have you repeat recorded words that you hear while there is background noise. Your hearing specialist will, in other instances, have you repeat words they are saying, but their mouths will be hidden from view.
Hearing individual words means you can’t depend on context to comprehend what’s being said, and being unable to see the speaker’s mouth keeps you from reading lips (something you might not even know you’ve been doing). For individuals who have hearing loss in the higher frequencies, words that rhyme, like climb, time, dime, and crime, are hard to distinguish.
Speech audiometry tracks your ability to make sense of what you’re hearing unlike tone testing which measures how loud particular sounds have to be in order to be heard. Word recognition testing can also assist in assessing whether hearing aids may help.
Immittance audiometry
Okay, these can be a little uncomfortable, but shouldn’t cause pain. Tympanometry artificially changes the pressure inside of your ear by pushing air in with a small inserted probe. A graph readout will allow your hearing specialist to identify if there’s a problem with your eardrum such as earwax impaction or a perforation, and how well your eardrum is functioning.
Your ears have reflexes that are tested by a similar probe. When you hear a loud noise, muscles in your middle ear automatically contract. It will be easier for your hearing specialist to determine the extent of your hearing loss when they know the level of noise required to trigger this reflex. There’s no reflex response in individuals who have profound hearing loss.
Though immittance tests are most helpful in diagnosing conductive hearing loss, issues with the eardrum and/or small bones inside the ear, because these can occur at the same time as age- or noise-related hearing loss, it’s important to include to know everything that’s happening with your ears.
If you’re having a hard time hearing, give us a call and schedule a hearing test! If you have hearing loss or tinnitus, we can help inform you on how to maintain healthy hearing, and what your potential treatment options might be.