hearing test
Feb. 6th, 2004 02:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mamajoanYesterday I went for a hearing test for a research study at Brandeis. (I have some hearing loss, mostly in my right ear which is pretty close to useless.) I guess they are doing some kind of research into memory and cognition as related to hearing loss, and they have a pool of elderly volunteers with age-related hearing loss, but they needed a control group of younger people with hearing loss. I had been playing phone and email tag with the lady running the study for a couple of months, mainly due to me being terrible at returning messages (I suck!) so when I finally did call her back she was embarrassingly grateful. I guess they have been having a lot of trouble finding young people with hearing loss, not surprisingly.
Anyway, since I had not had a hearing test in many years, she asked me to come in and get it tested to see whether I qualified for their study. If I didn't qualify, I still got a free hearing test and only lost an hour of my time; if I did qualify, I would come in again for several 2-hour study sessions, at $50/session. She was so desperate for participants that she even got one of her grad students to agree to watch Isaac during the proceedings!
It was interesting to have the test, since I used to get them very frequently as a kid but then I stopped getting them when I was a teenager because my hearing wasn't changing. It really took me back. *nostalgia* First there was the recording of a man saying words that you have to repeat (all compound words like "baseball," "houseboat," "icecream"), then the part I always hated where they play tones and you have to raise your hand when you hear the tone, and then the man again, this time saying "Say the word boat," "Say the word glove," and you say boat or glove or whatever. I was much less tense about this part yesterday than as a kid -- I always used to be neurotic about getting the word wrong.
So, apparently my hearing is in the 10-decibel range in my left ear, which is approx. normal, and the 65-decibel range in my right, which is bad (but I knew that). And both ears are worse than normal on higher-pitched tones, closer to normal on low tones. The lady doing the study is mailing me a copy of the audiogram, which will be interesting to have. My mom thinks she has one from when I was a kid so it'll be interesting to compare.
Alas, she emailed me this morning that I don't qualify for the study. My hearing loss is actually too severe for their purposes. Oh well, so much for my $150. It was still kind of fun, and interesting because I had been wondering what my hearing is like now, and now I know! :)
p.s. When the hearing test man said "pool-boy" I flashed on cheesy porn and had to refrain from giggling. I am easily amused.
Anyway, since I had not had a hearing test in many years, she asked me to come in and get it tested to see whether I qualified for their study. If I didn't qualify, I still got a free hearing test and only lost an hour of my time; if I did qualify, I would come in again for several 2-hour study sessions, at $50/session. She was so desperate for participants that she even got one of her grad students to agree to watch Isaac during the proceedings!
It was interesting to have the test, since I used to get them very frequently as a kid but then I stopped getting them when I was a teenager because my hearing wasn't changing. It really took me back. *nostalgia* First there was the recording of a man saying words that you have to repeat (all compound words like "baseball," "houseboat," "icecream"), then the part I always hated where they play tones and you have to raise your hand when you hear the tone, and then the man again, this time saying "Say the word boat," "Say the word glove," and you say boat or glove or whatever. I was much less tense about this part yesterday than as a kid -- I always used to be neurotic about getting the word wrong.
So, apparently my hearing is in the 10-decibel range in my left ear, which is approx. normal, and the 65-decibel range in my right, which is bad (but I knew that). And both ears are worse than normal on higher-pitched tones, closer to normal on low tones. The lady doing the study is mailing me a copy of the audiogram, which will be interesting to have. My mom thinks she has one from when I was a kid so it'll be interesting to compare.
Alas, she emailed me this morning that I don't qualify for the study. My hearing loss is actually too severe for their purposes. Oh well, so much for my $150. It was still kind of fun, and interesting because I had been wondering what my hearing is like now, and now I know! :)
p.s. When the hearing test man said "pool-boy" I flashed on cheesy porn and had to refrain from giggling. I am easily amused.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-02-06 11:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-06 11:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-06 12:21 pm (UTC)Sorry you didn't qualify...
Date: 2004-02-08 10:34 pm (UTC)