HEARING LOSS 4000 HZ AND ABOVE

This is an example of how speech would sound to a person with a significant hearing loss of 4000 Hz and above in both ears. Note that the speech is reasonably intelligible, if we pay attention. Although we are missing many of the higher frequency consonants, there is enough there to facilitate closure and we are hardly aware of it.

HEARING LOSS 2000 HZ AND ABOVE

This is an example of how speech would sound to a person with a significant hearing loss of 2000 Hz and above in both ears. Note that the speech is not too intelligible, but can be understood with great effort on the part of the listener.

This is an example of how speech would sound to a person with a significant hearing loss of 1000 Hz and above in both ears. Note that the speech is practically unintelligible, even if we pay close attention. Imagine trying to learn a language with this level of comprehension--impossible.

HEARING LOSS 500 HZ AND ABOVE

This is an example of how speech would sound to a person with a significant hearing loss of 500 Hz and above in both ears. Note that the speech is hardly recognizable. Only a few prosodic elements of rhythm and stress are available..

These exerpts were taken from a rather brilliant record, "How They Hear..., written and narrated by Earl Harford, Ph.D. , and produced by Gordon Stowe & Associates and recorded and manufactured by Custom Records Department, RCA Victor. Please be advised that any sounds you hear reminiscent of chickens or doves is an artifact of the location of my office where I recorded the excerpts, and not part of the actual record. Our office was originally a farm and after they had given the rest of the faculty their rooms as offices, they ran out of space. Hence, my office was a converted chicken coop. It was actually very nice, which was the problem in that some of the former occupants kept coming back. That is how things are in San Fernando Valley where CSUN is is located