If your hearing has been getting worse in recent days or weeks, then you might be thinking about going to visit an audiologist. This is certainly going to be your first port of call, and it’s something that you are going to want to think about if you are keen to make sure you take good care of your hearing and your ears. Of course, part of the experience will be having hearing tests of different kinds carried out, so it’s good to know what to expect here. Let’s look at everything you need to know about hearing tests right now, to help get your ready for it.

What is a Hearing Test?

First of all, what exactly is a hearing test? In truth, it is a series of different tests, each of which can help to determine not just the potential scale and extent of your hearing loss, but also the likely cause behind it. Using that information, the audiologist will then be able to work out what might need to be done in order to improve or treat the hearing loss, so it is vital that these tests are carried out appropriately and as soon as possible.

Types of Hearing Test

So, there are many different types of hearing tests, and during an appointment you might have to do any number of these to help get to the bottom of your hearing loss and work out how it has come about and how much it has developed. Some of the types include:

  • Pure-tone test: This is where you are given headphones to wear and the audiologist plays tones at different tones and volumes and you indicate when you notice the sound changing. This helps to see the full extent of your hearing.
  • Middle ear tests: These tests can help to see if there are any structural problems inside the ear, which might therefore be causing your hearing loss. The audiologist can also check that there is nothing blocking the ear canal, and that wax buildup is not too bad.
  • Speech testing: As well as testing your general hearing, it’s good to have your speech recognition ability tested, as that ensures that you are able to hear people normally in conversation every day.
  • Bone conduction: During this test, the audiologist will check that the bones in your skull are actually conducting sound properly. If they are not, this might be a cause of your hearing loss.

Length of a Hearing Test

How long will you be in there during the test? In general, you will probably find the testing on the whole takes about 40 minutes, but because you might also need to speak to the audiologist before and after you should be prepared to be in there for about an hour. In some cases, that might go up to an hour and a half. It is definitely worth spending this time with your audiologist, as at the end of it you will have a treatment plan in place.