When a person experiences hearing loss, many factors come into play. This is why it is hard to describe what hearing loss really sounds like. An article from NPR includes audio clips designed by renowned speech and hearing researcher Arthur Boothroyd, Ph.D. to help demonstrate the challenges a person with hearing loss faces.

By Charles Ruby, B.A.
Shohet Ear Associates Doctoral Extern

When a person experiences hearing loss, many factors come into play. This is why it is hard to describe what hearing loss really sounds like and why simply making things louder is not always a solution. We have found audio clips designed by renowned speech and hearing researcher Arthur Boothroyd, Ph.D. to help explain the challenges a person with hearing loss faces. These sound clips were made as part of an NPR article, which can be found here.

First, there’s volume: people with hearing loss have difficulty hearing soft sounds. This factor isn’t straight forward either because people with hearing loss often hear different frequencies (or pitches) differently. An example is the very typical high frequency hearing loss. People with this type of hearing loss often report that people mumble and that there is an extra difficulty with the clarity of speech.
 
Here is a sound clip example of a high frequency hearing loss.
 
Another factor that influences hearing loss is distortion that occurs inside the cochlea, our organ responsible for hearing. The sounds from various things around you overlap and reduce clarity. This factor is especially important in the presence of background noise as the background noise overlaps and blocks conversational partners.
 
Here is a sound clip example of distorted hearing loss.

The final factor we’re discussing today is called recruitment. This is a little bit trickier to describe because it is similar to the issue of volume. A person with hearing loss cannot hear soft sounds. An example might be hearing a bird chirping from outside. However, when a person with recruitment hears a sound that is loud enough for them to hear, it will sound abnormally loud. As such, soft sounds are cut out and the remainder sounds plenty loud. This is all due to damage that takes place in the cochlea.
 
Here is a sound clip example of recruitment.
 
One final thing to remember is that these factors are not exclusive. One person can have any combination of these or even all three to varying degrees. That is why there’s no one solution to hearing healthcare and why an individualized approach is essential. Please use these samples to share with those without hearing loss so we can better understand what hearing loss is like.
 
If you could not make out what the sound clip was saying, here’s the clip with no hearing loss effects.