Jared Clark's Inservice
What is an Audiogram?
Interpreting an Audiogram
- The left side of the audiogram represents loudness of sounds measured in decibels.
- Across the top, you have frequency (pitch) measured in Hertz. When thinking about the frequency, think of a piano where you have the lower sounds on the left and the sounds get higher as you move to the right across the audiogram. If we were to keep mapping sounds to the right, we would begin to see things such as dog whistles, or things that we as humans would not hear. When we say higher sounds, we are referring to voiceless, airy sounds, such as /s/, /sh/, /ch/. Sounds that have no voicing behind them. Those sounds tend to be the hardest for people with hearing loss to hear because they are so quiet.
- On the right side of the audiogram, you have the different degrees of hearing loss broken down.
- The boomerang looking thing in the middle is called a speech banana. This area represents the intensity (loudness) and frequency (pitch) where sounds are heard within normal, conversational level of speech.
- The left ear is represented by the blue X, and the right ear is represented by the red O, and are called plots.
- Wherever you see a plot and BELOW it, is what a person is ABLE to hear in that respective ear. Sounds ABOVE the line would NOT be detected.
**When considering what a person can hear, you must consider AUDIBILITY versus INTELLIGIBILITY. If something is audible, it means that sound can be detected. The person may not necessarily know, or understand what they are hearing. If something is intelligible, it means they understand what is being said, or heard. For example, a teacher in a classroom during arrival or dismissal will hear students in the hallway talking. Although the teacher can hear the students talking, they could not tell you exactly what the students are saying because they are only audible, not intelligible. When you are intelligible, you can be heard and understood.
- Reading down the right side of the audiogram, the areas that the student’s plots cross into determine their hearing loss. The loss can move across more than one type of hearing loss. For example, a student can have a moderate hearing loss, or a mild loss that slopes down to a severe loss. A person could also have a severe loss that slopes up to a mild loss.
What a Hearing Impaired Student May Hear
This is another representation of the audiogram. The original sentence is at the top:
“Freddie thought he should find a thistle behind the fish house”
A person with normal hearing would hear all the sounds. The student’s hearing loss is highlighted for each ear, if they are different. The empty spaces represent the sounds the student is not hearing. This is where a person would rely on speech reading if they have that ability.
**Not all people with hearing loss are able to speechread.
Takiyah Jacquet
Plano Regional Day School Program for the Deaf
Email: takiyah.perryjacque@pisd.edu
Location: 1517 H Avenue, Plano, TX, USA
Phone: 469-752-5581