TEST AND ANALYZE HEARING
Expected Outcomes:
• Basic hearing evaluation is conducted to quantify and qualify hearing loss on the basis of perceptual responses to acoustic stimuli and to describe any associated communication disorders.
• Results of the evaluation may result in recommendations for more advanced testing, medical referral, amplification consultation, assistive listening device consultation or follow-up recommendations.
• Speech discrimination tests are performed for additional information about a hearing loss.
• Evaluation may result in recommendation for a medical referral, amplification, aural rehabilitation and/or counseling.
• Determine need for medical referral based on audiometric air-bone gap results.
• Determine degree, type and configuration of hearing loss from test results.
• Hearing instrument efficacy will be determined by pre-post audiometric measures.
Indications for Procedure:
• Hearing evaluation may be done when a hearing screening is failed.
• Hearing evaluation is generally prompted by self-referral, family referral, failure of an occupational hearing test or referral from other professionals.
Procedure Methods:
• Hearing evaluation is preceded by eliciting the hearing history and assessing the hearing problem. This is followed by examination of the external ear canal and cerumen management if necessary.
• The standard audiometric tests consist of pure-tone air and bone conduction testing with appropriate masking using the TDH-39 standard. It is our recommendation that all providers move to the EAR-3 or equivalent insert earphones standard by July 1, 2005. Some professionals also choose to do loudness growth testing at this time.
• Speech testing includes speech awareness and/or speech reception threshold tests, speech discrimination tests and establishing MCL and UCL thresholds (appropriate masking used as required). In addition, further information can be gained by doing unaided and aided sound field discrimination tests and by testing binaurally as well as monaurally.
• Special audiometric tests are performed for additional information about a hearing loss.
• Evaluation may result in recommendation for a medical referral, amplification, aural rehabilitation and/or counseling.
• Procedures such as immittance audiometry (tympanometry and reflexes) are quite common.
• Procedures to assess cochlear versus retrocochlear (i.e., eighth cranial nerve, brainstem or cortical) auditory disorders include acoustic reflex threshold, tone decay testing and PiPb rollover testing.
• Special procedures for testing infants and children as appropriate to licensure or evaluating tinnitus are also sometimes called for.
• Evaluate the reliability and validity of the test results.
• Evaluate test results to determine the presence of collapsed ear canals.
• Evaluate aided sound field measures and/or real-ear aided performance measures or live speech mapping.
(Reprinted from the International Hearing Society web site open to the public) www.ihsinfo.org
