Hello everyone, Emily here!
Today, we're going to learn how to read an audiogram.
I am so glad you're here with me. Today, are you going to learn to read an audiogram for yourself,
a child, a family member, a friend, a loved one?
Why are you wanting to learn this skill? I want to hear down below, let me know if you're
learning for yourself or someone else, and who. Also, if you haven't already please like
this video or stick around to the end so that you can like it.
And don't forget to subscribe to my channel My goal is to increase awareness for the D/deaf
and hard of hearing, and this is one way I'm doing it.
So if you can, please like, share and subscribe.
That helps
so much - thank you.
I hope you stick around through this whole video because
I'm going to show you my own audiogram, and this is incredible and important, because
you can understand what kind of what I have and you can understand whether your loss is
close to mine and what it looks like. If you stick around to the end of this video, I'm
going to share another portion of the audiogram.
and what it means.
So today we're going to specifically talk about the audiogram section of it. It is important to understand
why we chart, hearing. We chart hearing so that we can understand how a specific person's
ears calculate sound and whether or not they can understand or hear or process
that sound. So this chart,
the audiogram, helps us to understand that. On this chart you're seeing the highest and lowest
levels of sounds that a person can hear, and also the frequencies that they can hear, let's
Let's get into it.
Okay.
First, we have the vertical axis, and when you're looking at an audiogram, it's going
to be on your left side.
So the left vertical access is hearing in decibels. Decibels, or dB.
Okay, so what are Decibels you ask?decibels are degrees of loudness measured on an exponential scale. 10, and
20...20 is 10 times greater than 10.
30 is 10 times greater than 20. So this is an exponential scale. That's something to keep in mind.
So to give you a gauge as you can see on the audiogram.
It goes from negative 10 decibels, to about 120 decibels.
But I want to give you a gauge.
So, for example, 10 decibels is breathing.
20 decibels is a whisper. 50 decibels is a quiet office.
60 decibels is conversational speech. 80 decibels is about the sound of a vacuum cleaner.
105 decibels is the sound of a motorcycle whizzing by.
FYI.
Fun fact, you should be wearing ear protection at any sound above 85 decibels. Ranges of decibels,
or sound loudness creates thresholds and it's through these thresholds that we categorize how, I
guess, good, normal or profound, or not good, someone's hearing is. From negative 10 decibels
to 25 decibels This is considered normal hearing for adults.
Now, a caveat here for children it is different.
The normal hearing threshold for a child can be zero to 15 decibels for kids 16 to 25
decibels can be considered a slight loss for a child.
So it is important to consult with your pediatric audiologist
if your child's hearing is in that range.
The next threshold is 26 dB, the 40 dB about this is a mild loss, people with
mild loss can experience difficulty hearing in noisy settings. The next range is 41 decibels
to 55 decibels.
This is a moderate loss.
The next threshold is the 56 to 70 decibel threshold.
This is considered a moderately severe loss. The next threshold is 71 to 90 decibels.
This is a severe loss.
This means that people have difficulty understanding in all settings.
And the last threshold is any loss greater than 90 decibels.
Anyone with this loss will have complete difficulty communicating orally, lingually, in any situation.
Here's a quick refresher.
Now we're going to talk about the top axis, on the top, the top horizontal axis. Along the top
you see frequency in hertz, hertz measures the frequency of sound.
This means pitch. Think about a piano, you have the low notes on the left side, when
you're looking at it, and the high pitch notes on the right side. Can hear that? That's exactly
how it's measured on the audiogram, in different levels of Hz. Fun fact, humans can hear, up to 20,000 hertz,
but because speech occurs from zero to 8000 Hz
that's what we measure because speech is what develops the brain and that is most important.
So as you can see there's are letters scattered throughout my audiogram.
These letters make up the speech bubble. Vowels are known to be lower pitch or frequency or
Hz sounds.
So they're towards the left side of the audiogram. Consonants, or hard sounds and are typically
higher pitch, closer to the right, but it's important to understand where the
speech bubble is so that people can realize where their hearing losses is in relation to
speech.
If someone claims that people are mumbling, it's highly likely that they may have a high
hertz or high frequency loss because they're missing the consonants of all the sounds. If
anyone has a low frequency loss they're missing the bulk of the words - all of the vowels - , and
this is very common in children, if they have losses. For me personally, I have an easier
time hearing low sounds and I do high sounds.
So male voices are actually easier for me to hear, then female voices.
And this is because I have a better hearing in the lower Hz ranges.
Okay, next the last portion of learning how to read an audiogram is understanding what
the symbols and the colors mean. Is your audiogram in color?
If not, no fear, they usually are not.
If yours is in color, you're going to notice two colors, red and blue, red stands for right
because the redis right and blue stands for left because blue is leftover.
So there's blue and red.
So whether or not your audiogram is in color, you're going to see symbols on this graph,
O's stand for the right ear, and X's stand for the left ear.
How do I remember this? Because right stands for
"Oh, right!"
We (hard of) hearing people do all the time.
"Oh, right."
And then X's are for the left, as in X- waves and waves are blue.
So that's how I remember that, how do you remember that? If you have special little tips
or tricks, I want to hear in the comments below.
If you don't have a system yet, you can use mine.
I've taught you how to read an audiogram I hope it was helpful.
If you ever have any questions about your audiogram, do not hesitate to ask your
audiologist what it means.
Now my audiogram comes with a key.
But still, there are some terms that are hard to understand like I'm masking bone conduction.
Check that out.
If you have questions, don't hesitate to ask your audiologist. They are there to help you and
answer your questions.
So thanks so much for sticking through this video. I'm going to show you my complete audiogram.
So if you look at this, you'll notice that 250 hertz, my hearing is in the moderate and
moderate to severe range, and as Hz continue, my hearing loss has a significant
drop at 250 to 1000 Hz.
It goes up a little bit to 2000 hertz, both ears are the same as 3000 hertz, kind of interesting.
And then they trail off from there you can see the difference between my right and my
left ear. My left ear has always been better than my right ear. People close to me know
that my left ear is my better ear, and they go to the extra effort to make sure that they're
on my left side, whether it's my running buddy when we're training for a marathon she runs
on my left side so that I can hear her as we talk, we run. And also my husband, whenever
we're in the car I prefer to sit in the passenger seat while he's driving, because I can hear
him better because my left ear is facing him. Whether or not you're here today to learn
how to read an audiogram for yourself or a loved one,
pay attention to your good ear look at your audio ground for your what your good ear is,
and then use that to your advantage. If you have people around you, and you want to hear
them go on the side where your best ear is facing them or sit in a way that you're able
to hear them better.
Also I want to tell you on the audiogram there can be a section for speech audiometry, which
takes into account the decibels and hertz
And figures out and calculates how well you can discriminate or understand what you're
hearing.
It's really interesting because people are like, "Oh, can't you hear me?" Well hearing and understanding
are two very different things.
So for instance, according to my audiogram, I have 72% discrimination my right ear in
88% in my left ear.
Then again, that metric also determines which ear is better. I can discern better
in my left ear.
Again, another reason why I face people.
So there you have it. Now you know how to read an audiogram.
I hope this has been helpful. If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments
below.
Again, I'd love to know whether or not you're learning how to read an audiogram for yourself
or someone else.
I hope you take a chance please like this video and subscribe to my channel so that
I can continue to make more great content for you.
I hope you all have a wonderful day and I'll be in touch.
Have a good day!