How is hearing loss classified?
Your ability to hear is as unique as your fingerprint. No two people have exactly the same hearing impairment. Hearing loss is classified by several factors: degree, understanding ability, location of loss along the speech frequencies, and type of loss. Degree: Degree refers to the amount/severity of the hearing loss. Hearing loss is ranked mild (slight difficulty hearing in daily environment), moderate (difficult to hear most sounds in your daily environment), severe (extremely difficult to hear all sounds in daily life) or profound (deaf). Understanding Ability: Hearing and understanding are different. You may be able to hear sounds but not understand what is being said. Sometimes understanding ability is impaired as a result of a hearing loss. This is usually measured by a percentage of your understanding random words. Location of Loss Along Speech Frequencies: Usually hearing loss does not affect all speech frequencies the same. For example, loud sounds damage hearing ability in th
