Your Guide to Hearing Tests

Hearing tests can be confusing things, on the surface. What’s involved? What should you expect? What is an audiologist even testing for? What even is an audiologist? You may be left with many questions after doing a bit of research or being recommended for a hearing test appointment, and that’s why this guide is here to help you find sense in all the noise. Don’t let yourself feel uncertain about a hearing test if you’ve got one booked; the process is actually quite simple, and it’s far easier to understand the results than you may think.

What’s being tested for

If you have a hearing related worry, it’s important to get in touch with a healthcare hearing professional to ask for a test to be conducted; a variety of potential issues can be explored during a hearing test, and each appointment is made personal to you. Furthermore, during a regular hearing test appointment, both your ability to pick up on sounds, as well as how well your hearing performs in day-to-day situations, are tested at an expert level by an audiologist. However, the tests involved are relatively simple, as we go through below:

What’s involved

In a standard hearing test, your ears are being tested for how well they’re able to pick up on sounds in terms of pitch and volume. This means you’re usually put through two tests: a pure tone audiometry exam, and a speech audiometry exam. You’ll be in a soundproof room for both of these, with headphones on for the duration of the audio testing period. More tests can be involved if your healthcare hearing professional deems it necessary, such as a tympanometry test, which measures the reflexes of your inner ear muscles. The first test measures how well you can pick up on soft sounds at multiple frequencies, and the second measures your comfortable listening level when in conversation. You may also have to pick out words from background noise during the second test, to determine how well you can listen to someone talking in a daily scenario, such as at the grocery store or in a working environment.

What happens next

Once your hearing test has been completed, your hearing health professional will be able to chart and show you the results of your exam. They’ll be able to clearly show to you if your hearing is at a normal, expected level or if you’re living with anything from mild-to-severe hearing loss, based on the decibe level. You’ll also be able to consider treatment types, if they are deemed necessary, and hearing aids can usually be fitted the same day for you to walk away with. If hearing tests have eluded you before, make sure you know what to expect and what’s going to happen once you make it into the appointment. Hearing tests aren’t scary things that need to be put off; have one done every three years and stay in the loop about how well you can hear.