How to read Audiograms 101 + info on aiding Unilateral hearing lo sses

[Guest guest]

Sorry if this is old-hat for most of you, but given my self-imposed

refresher course yesterday (Patty had a regular 3 month checkup with her

ENT), here is a short lesson on how to read audiograms and what is a " speech

banana "

The speech banana is a banana-shaped area of an audiogram which shows what

areas of frequency and decibals is required for speech to be perceived.

Different sounds come at different frequencies, for example, some consanants

are lower frequency sounds (m, z, b, d) and higher frequency sounds are the

k, th, s, and f sounds

For a great diagram on this, visit

http://www.educatedeaf.com/schools/speechbanana.html. Match your child's

audiogram with this sample diagram and you will see which sounds they are

more likely to have problems with.

A " cookie bite " loss is one that directly impacts the speech banana -- they

call it that because when you look at the audiogram, it looks like a bite

taken out of the cookie.

Hearing aids do not yet amplify sounds over 6000 Hz, even though

audiologists generally test to 8000 Hz and non HOH humans perceive sound up

to 20,000 Hz.

If you are wondering what all the Xs, triangles, and circles on your child's

audiogram mean, check out this other great URL at

http://www.audiologyawareness.com/hhelp/mixed.htm -- a complete legend is at

the bottom

I am of the personal opinion (yes, I have lots of them) that even unilateral

losses should be considered for aiding. I have two personal stories of

children my daughter goes to school with whose chronic school struggles and

behaviour completely changed when their unilateral losses were discovered

and aided. There are many, many articles in support of this argument

located at another of my favourite web sites,

http://www.listen-up.org/med2.htm -- just scroll down to the section marked

" Unilateral Hearing Loss " and click on any of the links

Hope this helps !!

Sheri

RE: Evan's check up with Dr. J.

> Best news is that his hearing test came back within normal limits. A 20

> db loss!!. His speech discrimination is 100%!!!.

Fantastic news!

> The only significant

> loss he still has is in the high frequencies, but that is not as

> important as we don't talk in those levels.

From my understanding, this is partially true. To understand speech, we

only need frequencies up to ~5kHz. If a Childs hearing is impaired at

~3-5KHz then they can function relatively well, but will have troubles

hearing the differences between high frequency sounds (S vs. SH for

example).

Typical hearing goes up to ~20kHz. So if hearing is impaired between 10kHz

to 20kHz, speech recognition should be fine. So it depends on what you mean

by " High Frequencies " .

Still, great news!

>I mentioned that bilateral BAHA's are the " new thing " and he

> told me that he still isn't convinced that bilateral hearing is

> necessary! HUMMMMM..more conflicting information.

I think you'll find a lot of conflicting information here. I think the word

" necessary " is key.

Is bilateral hearing necessary to learn language? No.

Is bilateral hearing required to understand speech? No.

Is bilateral hearing necessary to get directional hearing? Yes.

Does bilateral hearing help in noisy situations? Yes.

My opinion is that bilateral hearing is not " necessary " to function.

However, I do think it helps in a lot situations. I have heard from

bilateral BAHA wearers, and I have yet to find one that says they didn't

like it.

> He seems to think

> that since his hearing is normal in one ear, that should be fine. Guess

> I'll have to look this one up!. For now, I'm very pleased with these

> results and since he is doing so well in school, I don't see the need to

> push it.

I agree. you have great results on your hands, which eases a lot of

pressure/worries from your shoulders, I am sure. I see the bilateral issue

as " secondary " to the results you have now.

Just my $0.02,

Glad to hear about your successes with Evan,

Steve