First Audiogram - middle freq loss I guess

Hearing Aids
#1

You folks have been really helpful to a newbie like me with a bunch of random questions.

Now the big one . … .
I finally got my audiogram (can’t seem to paste it in the signature, but here it is (doesn’t paste in so good):

           250	500	750	1000 1500 2000 3000 4000 6000 8000

Right Ear 15 10 10 25 40 50 45 40 25 25
Left Ear 20 20 10 25 50 60 55 50 35 30

So it seems that middle frequencies is the worst, but doesn’t seem super bad . . .
My problem is hearing speech, is speech in those middle frequencies?

So with the mild to moderate loss, can I get a ‘cheaper’ HA (like only need an OPN 3 vs. OPN 1) or does the loss of speech areas mean I should look to something more advanced for speech.

Basically just looking for advice or wisdom :slight_smile:
Thanks again for everyone’s help

#2

Please see How to Add Audiogram to Forum User Profile for formatting suggestions.

#3

Your loss looks cookie bite. Apparently this can be a bit more difficult to fit so what you need most is a really good fitter/audiologist. And yes, your loss is right in the area that speech will be affected. If you google speech banana or do a search on the forum for it you will see which parts of the speech sounds are in your worst hearing frequencies. The vowels tend to be lower frequencies and provide the volume for speech. The consonants are more spread out and provide the clarity - help distinguish between similar words.

There is a lot of debate about whether anyone really needs the top end HAs over the bottom of the range. If seems to depend somewhat on your listening needs and the complexity of your listening environments. A good audiologist should go through with you, what your listening environments are like and work out your needs. The top of the range aids have more software to respond to changing and complex listening environments in their automatic programs. For speech in a quiet environment they probably won’t be any better than the lower end model of the same aid.

#4

What’s your word recognition score/test result?

Below is a table of sounds with speech included and also some volume levels of the sounds for reference. The yellow area is the speech banana Psocoptera was talking about, I think.

With regards to whether you need premium or less premium aids, it depends on how well you can understand speech in noisy environments. That’s where the more premium aids may have more processing that can help.

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