Understanding Your Audiogram

By Dr. Allan S. Mehr, FAAA

An audiogram is a picture of your hearing. The results of your hearing test are recorded on an audiogram. The audiogram to the right demonstrates different sounds and where they would be represented on an audiogram. The yellow, banana-shaped figure represents all the sounds that make up the human voice when speaking at normal conversational levels.
The vertical lines on an audiogram represent pitch or frequency. The 125 Hertz (Hz) vertical line on the left side of the audiogram represents a very low pitch sound and each vertical line to the right represents a higher pitch sound. Moving from left to right on the audiogram would be consistent with moving from left to right on a piano keyboard. The most important pitches for speech are 500-3000 Hz.
The horizontal lines represent loudness or intensity. The 0 decibel (dB) line near the top of the audiogram represents an extremely soft sound. Each horizontal line below represents a louder sound. Moving from the top to the bottom would be consistent with hitting the piano key harder or turning up the volume control on your stereo.
Therefore, every point on an audiogram represents a different sound. For example, point A on the audiogram to the right represents a soft low-pitch sound and point B represents a soft high-pitch sound. Point C represents a loud mid-pitch sound.
The softest sound you are able to hear at each pitch is recorded on the audiogram. The softest sound you are able to hear is called your threshold. Thresholds of 0-25 dB are considered normal (for adults). The audiogram on the right demonstrates the different degrees of hearing loss.
The audiogram on the right represents the hearing of an individual with normal hearing in the low frequencies (pitch) sloping to a severe high frequency hearing loss in the left ear and a moderate to severe hearing loss in the right ear. The blue Xs indicate the thresholds for the left ear and the red Os indicate the thresholds for the right ear.
If we now superimpose the normal speech area on the audiogram, we can obtain some information regarding this individual's ability to hear speech. The listener is able to hear all the low and mid speech sounds but is not able to hear the high pitch speech sounds (ie. F, S, TH) in the left ear (blue X's). The listener is not able to hear any of the normal speech sounds in the right ear. This person would rely on the left ear for speech understanding and would probably experience difficulty hearing in noisy environments.