Select location for your FREE Hearing Test- or call our main office number at (404) 786-6416 -we will be glad to help you find the closest location and best time.
Sugarloaf Hearing Aid Factory Outlet located inside the Sugarloaf Mills Outlet Mall in Lawrenceville, GA .
Athens Hearing Aid Factory Outlet located inside Georgia Square Mall in Athens, GA.
Snellville Hearing Aid Factory Outlet located inside The Shoppes at Webb Gin (formerly The Avenue) in Snellville, GA
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FREE Hearing Test Lawrenceville GA, Snellville GA, and Athens GA
The first step in the Hearing test will be a video otoscopy exam. Your fitter will look into your ears and check the size and shape of your ear canal and make observations of the condition of your eardrum. If earwax or a foreign object blocks the canal, then the hearing test results will not be accurate. The blockage needs to be removed by an ear, nose and throat doctor before the test can be done. You will have the opportunity to see the inside of your canal on a large video monitor.
The hearing test usually begins with what is called air conduction pure tone audiometry. The fitter will put headphones on you and instruct you to push a button or give a hand signal when you hear the tone. Each ear will be tested individually because each ear has its own hearing characteristics. All that you have to do is push the button that your fitter gave you, when you can just barely hear the tone. This test could also run in reverse, with sounds getting progressively softer. Each ear should be tested with at least 8-9 different tones.
Your fitter will present you a series of tones that will increase in volume. You will tell the fitter when the tone has become too loud and cannot be tolerated anymore. This test is important because it dictates the maximum volume the hearing aid will be set to allow. All good, medical grade hearing aids have a system to prevent sounds from being amplified too loudly to prevent further damage to your ear.
The last pure tone audiometry test should be a bone conduction test in which the inner ear is tested to see what type of hearing loss you have, and also to see what areas of the inner ear are affected by hearing loss. The fitter will place a small device behind your ear that emits tone. He will then ask you in what position you hear the tone the loudest. You can either hold the device on that spot yourself or your fitter will have a wire frame that is designed to hold it in place for you.
This test is just like the first in that you will be asked to press a button when you hear the tone. Each ear will be measured individually but, depending on your level of hearing loss, it is possible that the tone will be heard in the ear that is not being tested. In that case, the intensity of the tone being generated by the device is now high enough to be heard in the other ear that has a milder loss while still not being loud enough to be heard in the ear that is being tested. If this should happen during the test, you must interrupt the fitter and inform him that you heard the tone in the opposite ear of the one being tested. Your fitter will then put the headphones back on you and mask the better ear with noise. This prevents you from hearing the tone in the wrong ear, allowing for an exact measurement of the ear being tested.
After the pure tone audiometry tests, your fitter should do a speech recognition test. This test will determine how much speech you understand and predict the maximum percentage of speech understandability you can expect to regain again with properly fitted hearing aids.
In this test, you will be asked to repeat a series of words as you heard them. You are allowed to guess what the word was, even if you are not entirely sure. Of course, you can expect the volume (in this case, of the words) to increase throughout the test.