Have you ever wondered about...
THE EAR AND HEARING (Series 2)
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STEPS TO HEARING HEALTH
How can we protect our hearing so that we will
always enjoy our favorite sounds?
If we have healthy ears now, we can do things to
prevent hearing loss later.
- Avoid very loud and dangerous noise. Even loud
music may permanently harm your hearing.
- Wear hearing protectors, special ear inserts, or ear
muffs around noisy equipment.
- Work in your community to keep it quiet. City
and county governments often have committees
to make suggestions about reducing loud noise.
Let elected officials know that you are concerned
about protecting ears and hearing.
- Eat nourishing foods. Ears are nourished by the
body's blood supply. Fatty foods can change the
blood supply to the ears. In some countries where
people eat a vegetarian diet, the people were
found to have normal hearing even when they
were quite old. This is not true in our country.
Researchers believe this may be due to our "junk
food" eating habits and noisy surroundings.
STUDENT ACTIVITIES
- List ways that you can protect your hearing at home
or in school.
- Draw a poster about the different ways a person
can develop a hearing problem.
- Write a poem or short story about how hearing
sound is a part of your daily life.
WHEN YOU HAVE
A HEARING TEST
When you have your hearing tested, the audiologist will ask you to put on headphones and then
listen for some different tones. Some are high
pitched; some are low pitched. Some are loud; some
are very very soft. You push a button or raise your
hand to let the audiologist know when you just barely hear each tone. As you respond to each tone, the
audiologist will mark a special form called an audiogram. This form shows how softly you are able to
hear each tone.
Pure Tone Audiogram
The completed audiogram is a picture of how you
responded to all the tones. The numbers you see
across the top of the sample audiogram represent the
pure-tone frequencies-125 through 8000 Hertz
(Hz)-used to test hearing. The numbers tell something about these tones. As the numbers become
larger, the pitch of the tones becomes higher. Along
the left hand side of the audiogram. you see the numbers -10 to 120. These numbers tell how loud the sound is when you respond
to a specific tone. The unit used to describe the loudness of sound is the decibel (dB). Normal hearing is usually from 0 to 20
dB. As the numbers go from 10 to 20 to 30, the sound becomes louder. So, the higher the number of decibels when a person first
responds to the tone sounds, the greater a person's temporary or permanent hearing loss may be.
A hearing loss can make it difficult to understand speech and to hear other sounds around you. During a hearing test the
audiologist will want to know how well you can understand everyday speech, The audiologist will ask you to repeat words as they
are made softer. This helps determine how well you hear
spoken language. You may also be asked to repeat words while at the same time you hear another voice or noise coming through the
earphones. This procedure copies "normal" listening situations in which you hear not only a speaker's voice but other sounds in
the background.
To help you understand just how loud certain sounds are look at the audiogram on page 11. The drawings show the loudness and
frequencies of speech and other everyday sounds. A ticking watch is a high frequency sound (2000 Hz). It's louder than a whisper.
The speech sounds fall in different places on the audiogram. You can imagine how hard it might be to hear certain words correctly
if you couldn't hear some of the sounds. The shaded area on the audiogram shows a high frequency hearing loss. Take away those few
speech sounds (/f/, IsI, /th/, /k/) and you'd have a hard time telling the difference between "feel" and " seal." And think of the
confusion you'd have with "shoes" and 11 choose" or "sat" and "cat." These are just a few examples of the difficulty you would
have with a relatively mild loss.
The sound of two people talking is around 60 dB. With a high frequency loss like the one shown, it would be difficult to
understand everything they are saying in a conversation.
Other sounds may not communicate information, but they are part of our everyday lives. The sound of a baby crying is louder than
conversational speech but softer than a dog's bark, as you might have guessed. Sounds like a power lawn mower or a rock band or a
jet plane are much louder. Sometimes sound becomes so loud it can actually be painful for you, and you might cover your ears for
protection, a natural reaction.
IN CLOSING
If you think you have trouble hearing, talk to your parents and teacher about it. A hearing test is an easy way to find out if you
need to see your doctor or if using a listening device, such as a hearing aid, would be helpful to you. Our sense of hearing plays
an important part in communicating with our family and friends.
Do your part to prevent hearing loss and keep your ears healthy.
The pictures on this audiogram show the loudness and frequency (pitch) of speech and other everyday sounds. The letters represent
common speech sounds. Some of the sounds (rock groups, table saws, jet planes, helicopters) are so loud they can harm your hearing
if you are exposed to them in short blasts close to your ear or for long periods of time. (Reprinted with permission from Northen,
Jerry L. and Downs, Marion P. Hearing In Children (Third Edition) Baltimore, MD: The Williams and Wilkens Co. 1984.)
MORE TO READ
Curtis, Patricia. Cindy, A Hearing Ear Dog. New York: E.P. Dutton Publishing Co., Inc., 1981. (Non-fiction)
Davidson, Mickie. Helen Keller's Teacher. New York: The Four Winds Press, A Division of Scholastic Magazines, Inc.,
1968. (Non-fiction)
Fryer, Judith. How We Hear.- The Story over Hearing. Minneapolis, MN: Medical Books for Children Publishing Co.,
1961.
Greene, Laura & Dicker, Eva B. Sign Language. New York: Franklin Watts (A First Book), 1981. (Non-fiction)
Hyman, Jane. Deafness. New York: Franklin Watts (A First Book), 1980. (Non-fiction)
Neimark, Anne E. A Deaf Child Listened: Thomas Gallaudet, Pioneer in American Education. New York: William Morrow and
Company, Inc., 1983. (Non-fiction)
Pollock, Penny. Keeping It Secret. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1982. (Fiction)
Robinson, Veronica. David in Silence. New York: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1966, (Fiction)
Sullivan, Mary Beth; Brightman, Alanj.; Blatt, Joseph. With Roberts, M., & Fiske, J.A.W. Feeling Free. Reading, MA:
Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., Inc. (The Workshop on Children's Awareness), 1979. (Non-fiction)
Tibble, JW. & Tibble, Anne. Helen Keller (Series: "Lives to Remember"). New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1958. (Non-fiction)
Walker, Lou Ann. Amy, The Story of a Deaf Child. New York: Lodestar Books, E.P. Dutton, 1985. (Non-fiction)
"How you ever wondered about ... The Ear and Hearing?" was developed by the Info to Go (Info to Go) in
cooperation with the American Speech-Language-Heating Association (ASHA), Rockville, Maryland. For more information about the
"Have you ever wondered about ... ?" series or about deafness, contact:
Info to Go, Gallaudet University
800 Florida Avenue NE
Washington, DC 20002.
Written by: Evelyn Cherow, ASHA Illustrated by: Angeline V. Culfogienis Editorial Consultant: John P. Madison
The Info to Go at Gallaudet University gratefully, acknowledges the support of the Coca-Cola
Foundation in making this publication possible.
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