Audiogram 
                   hardofhearingchildren.com by PAM Candlish MLS
 "What did you say?" "Eh?" "WHAT did you say?" "MM?" "WHAT DID YOU SAY?" oh "PARDON ME!"

The Audiogram

Recently I took a course, from the http://snow.utoronto.ca:/ web site on multiple intelligences. I already believed in the theory, but it was interesting to see the applications within education for children with special needs. People who do well in school are usually from the math group or the languages group. I score equally highly in many areas including music and art. To understand something new, it is always best to try and relate it to something you understand.

This audiogram has a piano keyboard to show the relative frequencies, and indicates the diagnostic labels.

audiogram related to a piano keyboard to understand highs and lows

An audiogram is a picture of sound or lack of sound in a person's world.

 Audiology began with bells and whistles, and has progressed to the point that much of the programming and testing is done while the child has a drink in the coffee shop.. The sounds used to test hearing are in a perfect acoustic background, which only exists at the audiologists.

The Unaided Threshold

The unaided threshold is the quietest sound a person can hear. The concept of the decibel, (dB) was invented by A.G.Bell to denote the quietest sound a normal human ear can hear. Most people can hear leaves rustling on the trees. As the deafness intensifies, the unaided threshold lies across louder and louder sounds.

Traditionally audiologists used coloured pens to indicate right and left ears. As the hearing test is often photocopied, O is used for the right ear and X for the left.

Sound is a physical event which has frequency,intensity, and duration

Sound is a physical event which has frequency, how low or high the sound is, measured in Hertz. 1 hertz is very low, 10,000 hertz is high. Most of our important auditory lives are between 50 and 8000 hertz, so most audiograms look at that level of sound.

Duration is how long the sound goes on for, which is not part of the audiogram.   Intensity is how loud the sound is measured in decibels.

Real life Sounds are more complicated

sounds of life on an audiogram

The sounds of life are complicated  by our perceptions and daily auditory exercises. The city noise is hard for anyone, and the ear and brain learn to not listen to most of the noise. The demand of constant auditory discrimination is the hardest part of making sound louder for hard of hearing people.