Just because you can hear a sound does not mean you can understand speech.
Speech Discrimination Testing
This test involves playing recorded words of comfortable loudness and asking the test taker to repeat them back. This test assesses how well the ears are able to distinguish between similar sounds, such as fine and vine. Typically a score less than 90% indicates that speech is being distorted and made louder than necessary.
Testing Speech Against Background Noise
For many people their greatest difficulty with hearing is in noisy situations such as restaurants, pubs or even family gatherings. Speech in noise testing assesses how an individual understands speech in the presence of competing noise. The results are recorded at the lowest intensity at which 100% accurate understanding of the speech is achieved. See also Audiologist Taunton.
Word Recognition Scoring
The results from your speech test are expressed as a percentage of correctly identified words at a certain intensity. This score, along with your results from your audiogram, will help your Taunton audiologist determine whether you need a hearing aid, further testing or even a referral to another specialist.
How Results Are Interpreted Together
Looking at your results for both your tone threshold tests and your speech tests will help us understand your hearing loss better and give us more information on whether you have a simple volume loss or whether you have some nerve involvement or even some processing problems.
These measures are used by the Taunton hearing aid consultants to better explain your hearing test results. They will also help you understand your results better in case you require further hearing tests.
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