Degrees of Hearing Loss
|
Andrew Stewart
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Hearing loss can range from mild to profound.
0-25 dB | Normal range of hearing |
|---|---|
26-40 dB | Mild hearing loss, difficulty hearing soft speech and some speech in noise. More serious for infants and young children who need to hear speech in order to learn to talk. |
41-55 dB | Moderate hearing loss, difficulty hearing conversational speech. |
56-70 dB | Moderately-severe hearing loss, great difficulty hearing speech in both quiet and noisy environments. |
71-90 dB | Severe hearing loss, cannot hear most environmental sounds or normal speech without the use of hearing aids or assistive listening devices. |
91 + dB | Profound hearing loss, this is what most people think of as “deaf.” Cannot hear environmental sounds or speech. |