Are You Suffering From High Frequency Hearing Loss?

High frequency hearing loss can be distinguished from others because it affects mostly the upper range of the sound wave spectrum.

Sounds that register at a high frequency are more susceptible to loss than low ones, which may lead the victim of hearing loss to act as though they can hear sometimes and not at others.

This is simply because high sounds, for example consonants, are more difficult for them to hear.

However, depending on the severity of the loss, certain other sounds can still be heard, so it is unfair to say that the affected person is “just pretending” or practicing “selective hearing” for their own benefit.

High frequency hearing loss is a little-understood phenomenon that often precedes other types of hearing loss and, in some cases, comes simultaneously with them.

To the victim of high frequency hearing loss and other types of hearing disorders, everyday words may be missing little pieces. They hear the low inflections and vowels of each word, but not the rest of them, meaning that in some cases they will understand what is being said to them and respond, and in other cases they cannot hear well enough to function.

It may be useful for them to try and face the speaker whenever possible. Lip reading, a useful technique employed by those who are fully deaf, can also assist victims of any type of hearing loss.

Consulting with a doctor and determining the severity of normal or high frequency hearing loss can also be helpful, since in many cases hearing aids that are designed to restore high frequency sounds can be employed. In other situations, cochlear implants may be surgically added in order to provide a more permanent, long-term solution.

It is often difficult to tell the difference between high frequency hearing loss and mild to normal hearing loss. Especially with all of the background noise inherent in modern life, the only discernible symptom may be a slight problem with understanding words; at times, conversations may become a series of mumbles to the hearing-impaired listener and they may simply chalk it up to crosstalk or competing sounds.

The key distinction will be distortion of any kind. Music is an especially good indicator; victims of many types of hearing loss find that they cannot enjoy music as they formerly did because the sounds of many instruments have become warped.

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