A behavioral hearing test has multiple steps to obtain all the information to assess a patients hearing.
1) Your audiologist will ask questions about your medical and communication history.
2) An otoscope will be used to visually examine your ear canal and ear drum. It is important your ear canal is not occluded with wax or foreign objects.
3) Immittance testing is completed by performing tympanometry and acoustic reflexes. A soft probe tip is placed at the edge of your ear canal to determine the status of your ear drum and middle ear. During these tests, you will feel slight pressure changes (similar to the feeling of going up in an airplane) and hear some loud beeps.
4) After your outer and middle ear are examined, the audiologist will place you in the sound booth. Headphones are placed on your ears or inserted into your ear canals. While inside the sound booth, your audiologist will complete speech audiometry by asking you to repeat back words that are presented to you at varying loudness levels in order to find the lowest level of speech you can hear. Speech recognition is then evaluated by asking you to repeating back words at a conversational level in quiet and in the presence of background noise. Pure tone testing will then be evaluated by having you listen to a series of beeps or tones. You will be asked to indicate when you hear the beep or tone in order to help the audiologist calculate a more precise measurement of your hearing thresholds. Several other hearing tests may be completed inside the sound booth if necessary.
5) A test called otoacoustic emissions will be performed if needed. In order to complete this test, another soft probe is placed at the edge of your ear canal. Different tones are played into your ear, and if your ear is functioning properly, it will emit tones back to the probe.
6) After all testing is completed, your audiologist will discuss all of the results in detail and make recommendations based on the results.