Speech audiometry involves two different tests:

• One checks how loud speech needs to be for you to hear it.

• The other checks how clearly you can understand and distinguish different words when you hear them spoken.

What Happens During the Test

The tests take 10-15 minutes. You are seated in a sound booth and wear headphones. You will hear a recording of a list of common words spoken at different volumes, and be asked to repeat those words.

Your audiologist will ask you to repeat a list of words to determine your speech reception threshold (SRT) or the lowest volume at which you can hear and recognize speech.

Then, the audiologist will measure speech discrimination — also called word recognition ability. He or she will either say words to you or you will listen to a recording, and then you will be asked to repeat the words. The audiologist will measure your ability to understand speech at a comfortable listening level.

Getting Speech Audiology Test Results

The audiologist will share your test results with you at the completion of testing. Speech discrimination ability is typically measured as a percentage score.