What Is a Hearing Evaluation?

A hearing evaluation is essential to understanding and diagnosing your hearing loss. During your evaluation, a licensed hearing instrument specialist or audiologist will conduct a series of tests to access how well you hear. I get asked often about the cost of such an exam. House of Hearing Orem provides everything mentioned in this post completely free of charge. We simply want to help you hear, and a proper hearing evaluation will provide us with valuable insight to your loss.

1. Patient Paperwork
Before proceeding, you will be asked to fill out basic contact information and answer questions about your medical history. At our office, we use these questions to pinpoint your specific needs. Maybe you have been exposed to excess noise at work, or have suffered physical damage to your ears. It is important for us to know about past illnesses and any other basic medical history that may have had an impact on your hearing. Once you have filled out our paperwork, your actual hearing exam will begin.

2. Looking Into Your Ears
At the beginning of your hearing exam, we will ask to look into your ears with an Otoscope. This helps us see into your ears and determine if there are any abnormalities in the ear canal or maybe if you are plugged up with wax. If your loss is just from wax, we will give you a free cleaning kit to take home with you.

3. The Pure Tone Test
The next step is conducted in a quiet room. We try to keep our front room as quiet as possible to ensure outside noises will not interfere with test results. For a Pure Tone Test, you will be asked to insert a small set of earplugs into your ears. Testing each ear individually, we will play tones of different frequencies one at a time. When you hear the sound, we ask that you raise a finger. Each tone is played at softer and softer levels until you no longer respond consistently. The softest level you can hear is your threshold for that particular frequency. Your responses are charted on an audiogram, and the resulting graph indicates how well your outer and middle ear structures are processing sound. The various frequencies played represent the range of sounds you commonly hear in the world.

4. The Speech Test
The Speech Test is broken down into two parts. The first part requires you to repeat a series of two-syllable words that are played at successively lower levels. This test helps to determine the level at which you can detect speech. You will then be asked to repeat one syllable words set at a comfortable listening level, to see how well you understand speech. Identifying these levels helps to further determine your hearing aid candidacy. If your hearing exam shows you could benefit from hearing aids, these speech tests help customize your hearing devices so it is easy to comprehend conversation in multiple listening environments.

5. Results
From all of this, we will sit down and analyze your results. It is important to us that you understand these. We are happy to take as much time as you need to explain and go over everything. If you have a question, or simply do not understand something, please ask! It is possible to be tested and have no hearing loss. If your results do indicate a loss, we will provide free demonstrations of a variety of hearing aid brands and styles that will suit your lifestyle. We believe no two hearing losses are the same. At our office, we aim to give you a customized, personal fitting experience. We look to be the best at fitting hearing aids that are comfortable for your ears, your price range, and your lifestyle.