tiArA d tanah Zea yg Baru

Special thanks to Kak Syah (Master student in Speech Language Therapy)

for helping me understanding the so-confuse-to-pinpoint-the-so-called audiogram!

First, an audiometer is used to test a person's hearing.

Here is an example of a legend from an audiogram. This will help me decipher the results.

Types of Losses
Sometimes the audiologist will want to test how the person's inner ear is working with a bone conduction test. This test helps to determine if the person has a conductive, a sensorineural, or a mixed loss.

Here below are some examples of different types of losses as shown on the audiogram:

Here is an example of a sensorineural loss. Note how the bone conduction is the same as the air conduction results
Here is an example of a conductive loss. Note how with air conduction the person has a hearing loss. However, the bone conduction results show that the sensorineural pathways are in good working order.

Here is an example of a mixed loss. Both bone conduction and the air conduction show a loss, but the bone conduction loss is not as great as the air conduction loss.

The Speech Banana

The picture symbols represent the different sounds at that particular frequency and decibel level. For example, leaves rustling is very quiet (about 5 dB) and slightly-higher pitched (2000 Hz). However, a semi truck is very loud (100 dB) and lower-pitched (125 Hz).In the middle across the frequency range are the speech sounds. They call this the "Speech Banana" because, as you can see, it looks like a banana when you draw a line around them,

The reason why the speech banana is so important to be aware of is because this, in addition to the audiogram, will give you even more specific insight into what the child can and cannot hear.

For those children who are profoundly deaf or who are moderate-to-severe in their hearing loss, they will probably not be able to hear any of those sounds of speech unaided. (They might have a hearing loss that is good in some frequencies and not in others.)

For children who have a mild to moderate hearing loss, they probably will be able to hear some sounds of speech and not others unaided. Take a look at their audiogram as well and think about what they are missing.