I found some graphs showing normal human hearing treshold.

It's just amazing how well people with normal hearing hear, even with earplugs they hear way better than I do unaided!

This is because they have normal hearing and you don't.
 
Teenagers: Bug off!

Interesting article about "ultra-sonic teenage deterrent system"

Hear Again said:
If your mother doesn't wear hearing aids, that just goes to show how differently we hear. Before I wore hearing aids, I was able to hear soft and moderate sounds while wearing earplugs at night.
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I will never know what it's like to hear normally(till a cure or some advanced CI technology) yesterday when me and dad were shopping, he kept saying I was talking too loud but it didn't sound too loud to me. It's obvious he hears unaided much better than I hear aided. Sometimes with my HAs on, I can hear faint environmental sounds from my room. Dad says it's the wind outside.

This is because they have normal hearing and you don't.
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Maybe I can have my HAs programmed so I hear as well as someone with normal hearing in at least the low frequencies. Then I wouldn't be missing anything, whatever they hear, id also hear.
 
I will never know what it's like to hear normally(till a cure or some advanced CI technology) yesterday when me and dad were shopping, he kept saying I was talking too loud but it didn't sound too loud to me.

Now perhaps you understand why increasing the gain on a person's hearing aids doesn't always result in louder, clear speech (or environmental sounds). This is exactly what I explained when I said that when someone spoke to me from about a foot away with my hearing aids at a normal volume, their voice was barely audible.
 
Maybe I can have my HAs programmed so I hear as well as someone with normal hearing in at least the low frequencies. Then I wouldn't be missing anything, whatever they hear, id also hear.

If this is a goal you want to shoot for, go for it.

If I still wore hearing aids and could hear at 20-30 dB across all frequencies with good speech discrimination, I wouldn't care if I could hear as well as someone with normal hearing.

Besides, as Lady pointed out, if I could hear what a person with normal hearing does, high frequencies would bother me immensely.

Thanks, but no thanks.
 
Hear Again said:
Now perhaps you understand why increasing the gain on a person's hearing aids doesn't always result in louder, clear speech (or environmental sounds). This is exactly what I explained when I said that when someone spoke to me from about a foot away with my hearing aids at a normal volume, their voice was barely audible.
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I can hear someone speaking from the other room right now with my current aided results. It's true I don't understand a single word they say, but at least I know someone's talking.

Hear Again said:
If this is a goal you want to shoot for, go for it.

If I still wore hearing aids and could hear at 20-30 dB across all frequencies with good speech discrimination, I wouldn't care if I could hear as well as someone with normal hearing.

Besides, as Lady pointed out, if I could hear what a person with normal hearing does, high frequencies would bother me immensely.

Thanks, but no thanks.
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Nothing wrong with hearing the best a person can. I am gonna need them to be maxed out, my hearing is worse now than it was from my previous audiogram. I got those HAs several months ago and they were programmed based on my hearing at that time. Today my hearing is a little worse.

Hearing at 25db or better is considered normal hearing. I also just read that "average normal" hearing is 10db to 30db unaided. You stand correct that 0db unaided hearing is "not very common" I even Googled some more audiograms, including examples of normal hearing and they show a 5-20db threshold. There's a few that show 0db threshold at 1, 2 or 3 different frequencies.

I did read somewhere that frequencies above 2000Hz tend to be annoying for many people. Id still go for a cure(or CI), id rather deal with high frequencies than not hear them and experience poor speech understanding. Let us know your new audiogram.
 
I think the most important thing to remember is that hearing is not an exact science. Even if something looks like it should work on paper, it may not actually work. Auditory Processing Disorder is an example of something that can "fool" an audiologist. A friend of mine had hearing loss and APD, and she finally got hearing aids as an adult. She didn't have them very long before she passed away, but she was saying that she could hear better but *understanding* was still a problem.

And sometimes things just don't work as you expect. Sometimes you just don't hear as well as your audiogram says you do, for various reasons. The world is not a bunch of audiometer tones and spondee words, and your effective hearing results may never be what you want them to be. I've heard this is especially true with CI recipients because sometimes their brain just doesn't adapt properly.

It's not a guarantee that cranking up hearing aid gain will make you hear BETTER. It's just not an exact enough science.
 
I can hear someone speaking from the other room right now with my current aided results. It's true I don't understand a single word they say, but at least I know someone's talking.

The difference though is that you're satisfied with being able to hear environmental sounds. I wasn't, which is why I chose to receive CIs.
 
Etoile said:
I think the most important thing to remember is that hearing is not an exact science. Even if something looks like it should work on paper, it may not actually work. Auditory Processing Disorder is an example of something that can "fool" an audiologist. A friend of mine had hearing loss and APD, and she finally got hearing aids as an adult. She didn't have them very long before she passed away, but she was saying that she could hear better but *understanding* was still a problem.

And sometimes things just don't work as you expect. Sometimes you just don't hear as well as your audiogram says you do, for various reasons. The world is not a bunch of audiometer tones and spondee words, and your effective hearing results may never be what you want them to be. I've heard this is especially true with CI recipients because sometimes their brain just doesn't adapt properly.

It's not a guarantee that cranking up hearing aid gain will make you hear BETTER. It's just not an exact enough science.
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:gpost:
 
Let us know your new audiogram.

I'm waiting for a copy of it to arrive in the mail.
 
Hearing at 25db or better is considered normal hearing.

I'm able to hear low frequencies at 15 dB and mid frequencies at 20 dB with my CIs.

As for how many high frequencies I hear, I have no idea.
 
Deafdude- with your hearing loss you will never be able to hear "normally" even with the best hearing aids on the planet. Once your hearing thresholds get above ~70db the inner hair cells (the ones that connect to the cochlear nerve) are likely damaged. Outer hair cells are able to amplify sounds but they can't transmit a signal to the hearing nerve.
For people like you and me, with thresholds above 70 db there is both inner and outer hair cell damage. This means that sounds aren't just quieter they are also distorted.

Also keep in mind that the graphs you posted are in db SPL which is a very specific measurement that basically takes into account the pressure waves a sound produces in air. db HL is what is used on audiograms and differs from dB SPL because dB HL uses the third graph you posted and sets "normal hearing" according to those curves. (Sorry if my explanation is a bit vague).

Also, it is normal for young children to have hearing thresholds between -10 and 0 db HL. 0 db HL is not equal to complete silence, it annoys me when people assume that.

I am a scientist who has done research in hearing labs in the past and will go back to that again in October once I'm finished with my infectious diseases rotation.

-ECP
.25KHz= 85dB
.5KHz= 90dB
1KHz= 85dB
2KHz= 90dB
4KHz= 95 dB
8KHz= 100 dB

Speech recognition at 95 dB is ~65% (but my audiologist accidentally gave me points for guessing and saying something like "a all" when I was supposed to say "baseball")
 
ecp said:
Speech recognition at 95 dB is ~65% (but my audiologist accidentally gave me points for guessing and saying something like "a all" when I was supposed to say "baseball")
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Wow, sounds like your audiologist is trained to the Spondee words as much as the rest of us! If I had heard "a all" I probably would have said "baseball" just because I know that word is on the list. I guess your audiologist expected you to say "baseball" so he or she wrote that down when you said something close!
 
Bump, this is a very fascinating thread, i have to re-read it tomorrow, so far i enjoyed it, and it has given me some light on what to expect from a CI, as i have a serious case of tinnitus and failing hearing, but again, i need to research on impacts and effects of tinnitus on profoundly deaf-level people just to know that much more
btw Etoile, i like your signature with Gandhi's expression

:)
 
Grummer,

You may want to be aware of the fact that CI surgery can and does cause tinnitus. Before my CI surgery, I had mild tinnitus in my left ear. Following both of my surgeries, I developed mild to moderate tinnitus which continues to this day. Just thought I'd let you know that so you can fully explore all of your options.
 
Etoile said:
Wow, sounds like your audiologist is trained to the Spondee words as much as the rest of us! If I had heard "a all" I probably would have said "baseball" just because I know that word is on the list. I guess your audiologist expected you to say "baseball" so he or she wrote that down when you said something close!
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So would I. In my case, it would have been due to the fact that I've taken the Spondee test ever since I was old enough to repeat them and have memorized all of the words. :giggle:
 
Hear Again,
yup, I am aware of this as i was told by the CI team when i visited them six months ago, as I said, i need to explore for more 'mixed texts' which wove the scientific and experiental accounts together (like this audiogram vesus hearing experiences in this very thread) but one more related to tinnitus and CI...

and again this thread is a bit of a 'gold mine' in terms of understanding deafness expereiences and what is 'understood' when looking at audiograms, this is fascinating stuff especially enrichened with accounts of 'what is IS like to be hearing' and 'observing how hearing people really tells us what they actually hear' its a little startling.....but i like it, because its honest and its can be shown in a different (opposite) way to educate hearing people what its like for us. i just like it, in a weird way it kind of shows how intolerated hearing people can actually be! disturbing even.
 
ecp said:
Speech recognition at 95 dB is ~65% (but my audiologist accidentally gave me points for guessing and saying something like "a all" when I was supposed to say "baseball")
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Actually, your audi was correct in doing this. When someone accurately guesses any part of a Spondee, they are given points. The points are tallied and represent your speech discrimination percentage for words.
 
Grummer said:
Hear Again,
yup, I am aware of this as i was told by the CI team when i visited them six months ago, as I said, i need to explore for more 'mixed texts' which wove the scientific and experiental accounts together (like this audiogram vesus hearing experiences in this very thread) but one more related to tinnitus and CI...

and again this thread is a bit of a 'gold mine' in terms of understanding deafness expereiences and what is 'understood' when looking at audiograms, this is fascinating stuff especially enrichened with accounts of 'what is IS like to be hearing' and 'observing how hearing people really tells us what they actually hear' its a little startling.....but i like it, because its honest and its can be shown in a different (opposite) way to educate hearing people what its like for us. i just like it, in a weird way it kind of shows how intolerated hearing people can actually be! disturbing even.
Click to expand...

I'm glad you are aware that CI surgery can cause tinnitus because I'd hate for you to be misled into thinking it doesn't and being disappointed as a result.

As for this thread, I agree with you. It has been a fascinating discussion! :)
 
Hear Again said:
Actually, your audi was correct in doing this. When someone accurately guesses any part of a Spondee, they are given points. The points are tallied and represent your speech discrimination percentage for words.
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Maybe, but it seems to overestimate what I can understand. In my lab meeting today (in which all the people in the infectious diseases lab where I work present what we have done in the past week to our sort of imposing boss) I tried to keep track of the number of times I couldn't understand what was being said. It was something like 2 out of every 6 words, except when a male co-worker with a deep, loud voice was talking.
That is ~33% correct in quiet.
In the lab, with all the noises from centrifuges, incubators, freezers, vortexes, and air handlers, I always get my mentor to write down the really important parts of an experiment and I always repeat what he said just to make sure I got it right.

It may seem silly but I can't tell the difference between TAE & TBE or PBS & BBS or DBS. Science is so full of these similar sounding abbreviations that stand for different things.

I can't wait for medical school! :ugh:

Sorry for the rant.

-ECP
 
ecp said:
In my lab meeting today (in which all the people in the infectious diseases lab where I work present what we have done in the past week to our sort of imposing boss) I tried to keep track of the number of times I couldn't understand what was being said. It was something like 2 out of every 6 words, except when a male co-worker with a deep, loud voice was talking.
That is ~33% correct in quiet...It may seem silly but I can't tell the difference between TAE & TBE or PBS & BBS or DBS. Science is so full of these similar sounding abbreviations that stand for different things.
Click to expand...

Unless you're tested specifically using Spondees, it's difficult to know what your speech discrimination percentage would be in a noisy environment since this kind of environment isn't consistent.

Being unable to hear letters and words that sound alike is very common among people with hearing loss. Even when I had moderately-severe loss in 1985, I couldn't hear the difference between bat, mat and cat or the letters c, d, e, g or p.

By the way, I know how difficult it can be to hear/understand terminology. When I used to study medical transcription, I couldn't hear the difference between 15mg and 50mg. I also couldn't distinguish between meds that sounded the same. That's a liability issue which is why I changed majors.
 
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