What to Expect at a Hearing Test

The initial phase of a hearing examination typically involves responding to questions similar to those posed by any medical professional during other appointments. These questions can include your past and current medications, medical conditions, any hearing issues in your family, the level and amount of noise you are exposed to, your hobbies, your employment history, and any hearing problems you are currently experiencing. With this information, our audiologists can build a broad overview of your hearing health in order to prepare for the upcoming tests and treatments.

At this step of the evaluation, our team will attentively review the physiology of your inner ear with an otoscope (a device that emits a beam of light) to investigate any hindrances. This can range from ear wax build ups to foreign objects obstructing the ear canals or even abnormalities caused by a range of illnesses. Our hearing specialists are also trained to check the physical condition of your eardrums for any irregularities.

During tympanometry, our audiologists seek to measure the flexibility of your eardrums. To conduct the examination, the tympanometer probe is inserted into the auditory channel. This instrument modulates the pressure in the ear, produces a single-frequency sound, and registers the eardrum's reactions to the sound at various pressures. The data obtained from this process is used to develop a graph indicating how the admittance alters with pressure, known as a tympanogram.

To determine how well an individual can comprehend speech, a speech testing process is conducted within a soundproof room, where headphones must be worn. This evaluation consists of two parts: the Speech Reception Threshold (SRT) exam and the Word Recognition Test (WRT). During the SRT exam, the volume of the emitted words is slowly reduced until you are able to accurately repeat only half of the words you hear. The WRT measures your ability to recognize words at normalized sound levels. Following both evaluations, your likelihood for improvement with different treatments can be identified.

For a thorough understanding of the source of your hearing issues, both Air and Bone Conduction Tests are carried out. The Air Conduction Test involves putting on headphones from which various sounds are emitted, and you must raise your hand or press a button to confirm hearing them. The Bone Conduction Test follows, with vibrations produced and sent straight to the auditory nerve by a special headband with a vibrating unit positioned right behind the ear. With the data from both tests combined, our experts get an accurate idea of whether the hearing loss is due to physical factors or damage to the auditory nerve.