What to Expect at a Hearing Test

It is estimated that individuals wait an average of seven years before they begin to seek assistance with their hearing from the moment they first encounter changes.

Hearing Test If you have noticed a change in your hearing abilities, the first move is to take a hearing test. There's nothing to fear when you first see an audiologist; a hearing test is quick, painless and can give you the information you need to take charge of your hearing health. 

When a baseline hearing test is performed, hearing can be controlled efficiently, preventive measures can be enforced, and care can be recommended sooner rather than later if hearing starts to change. This ensures more significant progress with treatment. 

Here's a guide to what to expect with a hearing test with us.

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Hearing Consultation

1. A Consultation

To start, we’ll ask you about your lifestyle, habits, jobs, and current listening experiences during your consultation with us. To determine whether there is any inherited hearing loss, we will inquire about your personal and family medical background. 

If you have been treated for an infection or medical condition recently, we will inquire about the drugs that you have been prescribed. All of this will be useful during our diagnosis stage. We will also explore how well you feel that you connect to others in specific sound environments.

Ear examination

2. Ear Examination

Next, we will perform a physical examination of your head, neck, and ear area. We will examine the condition of your ear canals and eardrums using an otoscope. We are looking to see if your eardrums have any blockage due to damaged earwax, inflammation, or injury, as this could impede hearing ability.

Hearing Test

3. Hearing Tests

To determine your current hearing capacity, we conduct a series of hearing tests. The tests look at the role of your eardrum, outer hair cell function, and acoustic reflexes. You will be asked to sit in our soundproof space during the hearing test, with a set of headphones on.

The pure tone test looks at how well you hear a sound. At various frequencies and volumes, we will play a series of sounds, and if you hear one, you will be asked to press a button.

We'll then run a test for speech recognition. A sequence of phrases will be played, and you will be asked to repeat the words or phrases.

We will perform a tympanometry test in such cases. It can help diagnose disorders, which can lead to hearing loss, particularly in children—the test measures how your tympanic membrane responds to sounds.

Review results

Reviewing Your Results

An audiogram, a visual representation of your hearing capabilities by ear, documents your hearing test results. The speech recognition component of your test will be registered as a percentage. 

We can assess the configuration and degree of hearing loss, if it is present, from these findings. If you have hearing loss, using the information shown on the graphs, we can explain why communication and speech comprehension is difficult. 

Your audiogram shows the vertical axis depicting loudness and the horizontal axis representing frequency. Here is a guide to the various levels of hearing loss it can display.  

  • Normal hearing (0 to 25 dB)
  • Mild hearing loss (26 to 40 dB)
  • Moderate hearing loss (41 to 70 dB)
  • Severe hearing loss (71 to 90 dB)
  • Profound hearing loss (greater than 91 dB)
Hearing Aid Fitting

Next Steps

If a hearing loss is detected, we will recommend a series of treatments, including hearing aids, cochlear implants, assistive listening devices, community therapy classes, or medical referrals. The most common hearing loss treatment is the prescription of hearing aids, although cochlear implants will still be needed in some cases. At Hearing Associates of Central Florida, we offer hearing aids and cochlear implants from leading suppliers and are excited to guide you through every step of the fitting process.
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