Understanding Your Child’s Hearing Loss
The Audiogram
The audiogram is a graph that represents your child’s responses to different sounds. It is used to document the softest sound your child can detect at a variety of different frequencies (pitches).
With a complete audiogram, an audiologist can determine the type, degree, and configuration (or shape) of your child’s hearing loss.
Frequency (Pitch)
The frequency or pitch of sound is shown by the numbers across the top of the audiogram. Low pitches are on the left-hand side of the graph and high pitches are on the right, somewhat like the keys of a piano, which range from low pitches on one end of the keyboard to high pitches on the other end.
The frequencies included on an audiogram are chosen because they are important for understanding speech. Different speech sounds have different pitches, so it is important to know how well your child hears across the frequency range. In order to hear the word completely, your child must have appropriate levels of hearing at low, middle, and high frequencies.
Intensity (Loudness)
The intensity or loudness of sound is shown by the numbers down the side of the audiogram. The small numbers at the top are soft sounds (–10, 0, 10 decibels), and the large numbers at the bottom are loud sounds (90, 100, 110 decibels).
The “Speech Banana” and the Sounds of Human Speech
The “Speech Banana” is a very useful visual tool for describing where the sounds used in everyday human speech occur on an audiogram. When mapped out on a graph, these sounds (or phonemes) form an almost banana-like shape, which is where the term “Speech Banana” comes from.
This graph can be very useful for children with hearing loss, as well as the people they communicate with, better understand the child’s hearing loss and their access to different speech sounds.
The purpose of conversation is to both speak and be understood. If your child is having difficulty holding a conversation, be aware of the sounds that they will have more difficulty hearing and adjust accordingly. For most people, the words containing sounds on the left half of the Speech Banana are easier to understand. However, everyone has a slightly different ability to hear. Children with hearing loss will need to have their hearing levels tested regularly to ensure their hearing loss has not changed and that their listening devices (hearing aids, cochlear implants) are adjusted appropriately.
