Sense of hearing and audiograms

Sensorineural hearing loss occurs when there is damage to the inner ear (cochlea) or to the nerve pathways from the inner ear (retrocochlear) to the brain. Sensorineural hearing loss cannot be medically or surgically corrected. It is a permanent loss.
Sensorineural hearing loss not only involves a reduction in sound level, or ability to hear faint sounds, but also affects speech understanding, or ability to hear clearly.
Sensorineural hearing loss can be caused by diseases, birth injury, drugs that are toxic to the auditory system, and genetic syndromes. Sensorineural hearing loss may also occur as a result of noise exposure, viruses, head trauma, aging, and tumors.

Courtesy of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association web site.

This is an eye opener. At age 55, I am still learning about my hearing. I inherited my hearing loss. I have uncovered things on the Internet that I only suspected were possible about my hearing. I thought that a major part of my communication problems were a defect of character, and that my hearing aids were doing the job they were intended to do: “correct” my hearing. But it has also impacted on my relationships and defines who I am.

Now I know that hearing loss has impact way beyond the sound level or ability to hear the sounds of speech (called phonemes). Those are the consonants and vowels that make up word syllables. My hearing loss, like most, mainly cuts into the reception of consonants.

My wife says I have gone an amazing distance to get to this point. A little like Tiger Woods being a blind champion golfer.

AUDIOGRAMS
FYI, my audiogram has a common sloping loss that declines from -40 dB @ 60 Hz to -70dB @ 2000 Hz and higher

This means I can hear vowels decently, because they reside in the lower frequencies. But consonants are in higher frequencies. The F and the S sound are almost impossible to tell apart anymore, hearing aid or no. Many other consonants are equally tricky.

image courtesy of this blogger, Abbie, http://contradica.blogspot.com/

Hearing loss impacts understanding.
I had suspected this, but did not think that this was true in my case. But why, when I am alone with a few people or when I listen to the TV or radio, I can always hear and understand every word. I often struggle to hear with more people in the room. (Most public speakers or professional announcers do, in fact, speak and enunciate much better than the average Joe, which may explain this.

I am extremely intelligent, say those who know me and have met me. I know I can do most anything I set my mind to.

But no amount of intelligence can make up for the listening, hearing and comprehension handicap. Hearing aids are overrated. I was taught early on to believe that my disability was well resolved by the hearing aids. (Brainwashed is the word my wife uses)

I have my first audiogram from 1961, where a note says: “Patient is eager to wear the hearing aid, and no difficulty in adapting is foreseen.” At age 7, that may have been the last time I believed that a hearing aid would give me the ability to hear normally.
For years I have accepted what I was given. But I have gradually learned about my hearing through the Internet that hearing and hearing aids are generally problematic. I think many, if not most, people want to believe that hearing aids are a panacea.