Hearing loss is a reduced ability to hear speech and other sounds. Hearing loss, also called hearing impairment, can present itself in many different ways for different people. For example, it can be temporary or permanent, it can affect one or both ears, and it can vary greatly in severity from one individual to the next. While some people may experience complete loss of hearing in one or both ears, most people with hearing loss will experience a partial loss of hearing.
These individuals may have a reduced ability to hear certain pitches of sounds, and they may require certain sounds to be louder than normal in order to hear them. Hearing loss can vary in severity, ranging from mild to profound. Some people may have a mild hearing loss for low-pitched sounds (such as vowel sounds) and a severe hearing loss for high-pitched sounds (such as “th” and “sh” sounds). As you can see, hearing loss is not as straight-forward as simply “hearing” or “not hearing”, and this is one of the reasons why it may often be overlooked.
Hearing loss will typically result in difficulty understanding speech. In particular, it often presents itself as difficulty hearing high-pitched sounds; this can make many high-pitched consonants such as “s” and “f” difficult to distinguish, which results in reduced clarity of speech. Some individuals with hearing loss may hear vowel sounds quite well, with hearing loss primarily affecting their ability to hear higher-pitched consonant sounds. For most people with hearing loss, it’s not that they don’t hear; they are simply lacking clarity in what they do hear. They may be “hearing” but not necessarily “understanding” what was said, or misunderstanding parts of what was said. Because some of the important speech sounds are not being heard properly, similar words may start to sound the same (ex: “pass” versus “path”, or “tie” versus “pie”); the words within a sentence may not be distinct from one another; and it may start to seem as though other people are mumbling.
To book a hearing assessment or learn more about hearing loss, please contact one of our clinics.