“Say What…?” An Introduction to Hearing Loss

Hearing loss is a common problem among children and adults. Our noisy environment and noisy recreational activities make hearing loss a realistic possibility for many of us. The onset of hearing loss is usually a slowly progressive process, and hearing problems are not generally admitted by the person involved. Children and teenagers seldom recognize the symptoms of hearing loss, and older persons lose their hearing so gradually they do not realize that it is happening. The purpose of this audio cassette is to demonstrate how difficult it is to identify sounds when a person has a significant hearing problem. We present sentences and lists of words that have been electronically filtered to simulate the sounds of speech as a hearing-impaired person might perceive them. This audio cassette presents three sets of the same ten words, filtered at different cut-off frequencies to represent high-frequency sensorineural hearing loss. Each listener should be prepared with a pencil to take the “hearing test” when the recording says to do so, and to guess at the word if necessary. Each list of ten words becomes easier to understand. The third (C) set of ten words is presented without filtering. 

American Academy of Audiology – Time: 11:15 – An Activity Audio Cassette