“I can hear, but I can’t understand.”

If this is what you’re experiencing,  you may wonder if you have a  hearing loss. When you think of  hearing loss, severe hearing loss or deafness probably comes to mind. but mild, moderate and high frequency losses are actually much more common. And with these types of hearing losses, the only symptom may be difficulty with word understanding, especially in situations where there is competing noise.

People with high frequency hearing  losses are said to have a “sloping” hearing loss. If you have a sloping hearing loss, it means you are able to hear low-pitched sounds, those below 1000 Hz, very well, sometimes even as well as someone with normal hearing. But the high-pitched sounds above 1000 Hz need to be much louder before you can hear them. While not always the case, high frequency hearing loss is often the cause of that feeling you can hear, but can’t understand.

In speech, vowel sounds (A, E, I, O and U) are low in pitch while consonants sounds (S, F, Th, Sh, V, K, P and others) are high in pitch.

Being able to hear vowel sounds is helpful and will alert you that speech is presnet, but it’s the consonant sounds that give speech meaning and help you distinguish one word from another. Without being able to hear subtle differences between consonants, words like “cat” and “hat”, “parrot” and “ferret”, and “show” and “throw” can be hard to differentiate. This is why so many people with high frequency hearing losses brought about by natural aging (presbycusis) or excessive noise exposure have difficulty understanding even when they know sound is present.

If you can hear, but can’t understand, you’re not alone. The first step is to make an appointment. The cost is usually about the same as that of an eye exam and is well worth the investment.

Content provided by Healthy Hearing