It would be nice to get choices on the NHS but as it's free, they get to choose
Degrees of hearing loss and speech scores!
- Thread starter deafdude1
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It would be nice to get choices on the NHS but as it's free, they get to choose
Consonant/Nucleus/Consonant (CNC) Test
I scored 4% unaided at 105db HL loudness on my March 2009 audiogram. That score example of 42% is what someone with about 80db HL would score. A CI would score around 50% in comparsion. My thread is educational and explains what an average person would score for his given degree of hearing loss. Those with moderate losses can be aided to very near normal. Beyond a 60db HL, it goes downhill fast because damage to IHC begins at this point. Below 60db, only your OHC are damaged.
I scored 4% unaided at 105db HL loudness on my March 2009 audiogram. That score example of 42% is what someone with about 80db HL would score. A CI would score around 50% in comparsion. My thread is educational and explains what an average person would score for his given degree of hearing loss. Those with moderate losses can be aided to very near normal. Beyond a 60db HL, it goes downhill fast because damage to IHC begins at this point. Below 60db, only your OHC are damaged.
Here is an example of CI speech scores. I found this on the internet while researching the average CI performance on a Google search. CI(link) matches HA with 80db HL
http://www.hearingaidhelp.com/hearing-evaluation.html
This person has normal hearing(15db HL) to 1500Hz then drops off sharply to a moderate loss(60db HL) at 2000Hz and up. He is able to score an SRT of 20db which represents normal hearing by PTA. He is able to understand 80-84% NU6 monosyllabic speech at normal converstational loudness levels unaided(60db level)
This chart shows the effects of normal hearing under filtered passes. The lowpass removes the high frequencies. Note that missing a little of the highs or lows has little effect on speech but once you miss too much, speech starts going downhill rapidly. The person above with 1500Hz normal hearing has a speech understanding that is in agreement with the chart.
Due to the redundancy of speech, if you can hear normally in any 3 octives of the speech banana(200Hz to 6400Hz), youll understand about 90% monosyllabic word speech. Note that missing the highs would be analogous to missing the tops of the letters as shown in the above photo. For those with a low frequency or mid frequency loss or some other combination, visualize some part of the letter missing. You can still easily read each letter at 1600Hz. At 800Hz, it becomes much harder and at 400Hz, most of the letters look the same. Speech words would sound similar and sentences would appear to run if you could not hear above 500Hz or so.
Notice that a mild HL of 30db makes speech sound less loud, shown in gray. Unaided, youd understand 88%, aided it would be 98% of monosyllabic words. Many people with only 30db HL do fine without HAs. A moderate HL of 45db makes speech sound very faint, shown as barely visible. Youd benefit seriously from HAs, being able to score 94%. A moderately-severe HL would make you unable to hear speech unaided, unless it's shouted near your ear. Aided, the average score is still 90% but drops rapidly from there due to involvement of IHCs. By 100db HL, there's too much distortion to understand any monosyllabic words, although you may still understand 35% sentences. Youd be a CI candidate per today's lax requirements. Your other choice is stem cells.
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