An audiometry test is simply a process to plot one’s ability to hear the sound on an audiogram. But to understand this we need to understand what sound is.

Imagine, sound as the waves that hit your ear. These waves are of different magnitude and different frequency according to the modulation in the sound. Sounds with a higher frequency are of the higher number of waves or loops. Sounds with lower frequency are of the lesser number of waves or loops. In simple terms, higher the frequency sharper the tone of the sound.

You might have heard elder men with lower pitch vocal sounds and children or especially female with higher pitch vocal sounds. These are some of the basic examples of the frequency of sound.

Usually, at the earlier stage of hearing loss, patients tend to miss out a few words spoken by children or women. Sometimes misheard pronunciations! These are symptoms of a mild hearing loss. In case you visit an audiologist, they suggest you take an Audiometry Test and check the audiogram.

The audiogram is the result of an audiometry test that plots how much of the hearing loss has been developed. This process of plotting a graph of the level of hearing loss on an audiogram is called an Audiometry Test.

Hearing occurs when the sounds waves enter into your middle ear and stimulate the inner ear. These stimulations click the signals to the brains to interpret the intensity, change and tone of the sound. Your brain is smarter and faster than you think. Can you recognise a person through their voice? That’s because of the interpretation of your brain.

In case of hearing loss, when the sensory hearing cells in the inner ear are damaged due to any reason (loud noise, a puncture in the ear, age) the signals travelling to the ears are not always correct to interpret the word or sounds. Audiometry test just tries to understand this by stimulating soundwaves inside your ear and plotting the graph on how you interpret the sound.

Some sounds with high pitch words with ‘Sh’, ‘Ch’, ‘Se’ are difficult to be heard by a person with a hearing loss.

Let’s have a fun activity. Watch the video below and let us know in comments at what point do you stop hearing any sound.

Enjoyed this activity?
If you could hear all the sounds. Your ears are perfectly well.