Accurate diagnostic Audiometric Evaluations
are performed with the best equipment available and the best hearing doctors.
Your Hearing Test
may include: diagnostic audiometry (using puretones and speech), OAEs (otoacoustic emissions), advanced tympanometry and immittance studies, evoked potentials, visual reinforcement audiometry, and auditory processing assessment. Consultation reports following your hearing test will always include specific recommendations for appropriate follow-up care. Our audiologist doctors welcome patients from Orchard Park, Hamburg, Lackawanna, East Aurora, Springville, and the surrounding Buffalo, NY areas.
Here is a partial list and description of the Audiometric Hearing Tests
that we provide:
Comprehensive Audiometry
includes puretone threshold measurements that determine the quietest sounds that you can hear as a function of frequency using both air conduction and bone conduction. Also included are speech tests to determine the quiest words that you can hear and the percentage of words that you can correctly identify at a comfortable volume (in quiet and in noise).
Tympanometry objectively measures the functional status of the middle ear system (the eardrum and the 3 small bones that transmit the sound to the cochlea).
Acoustic Reflexes are triggered by loud sounds and are present in the normal auditory system. They are reduced or absent when there is cochlear hearing loss and they are reduced or absent when there is damage to the facial or auditory nerves (the 7th and 8th cranial nerves). They are are usually absent when there is a middle ear pathology.
Otoacoustic Emissions
are the acoustic echoes of normal cochlear function. They are produced by the outer hair cells (sensory cilia) in the cochea and can be measured objectively. OAEs are routinely used in pediatric evaluations. In adults, they help determine the extent of hearing loss and degree of cochlear involvement.
Auditory Evoked Potentials Auditory evoked potentials measure the electrical activity of the auditory system in the auditory nerves, the brainstem and the cortex. They can be used in objective pediatic evaluation to rule out hearing loss and they can also be used for differential diagnosis of auditory impairments.
Auditory Processing Evaluation. Auditory processing evaluation helps to determine the efficiency of the auditory system as information flows from the cochlea to the brain (auditory cortex). These evaluations are usually performed on children who are struggling in school for no apparent reason. These children may also have problems retaining auditory information especially in difficult listening situations. Most children with auditory processing disorder have concommitant problems learning to read. Our Magic Penny Early Literacy Program was developed to assist children these children learn to read.
