Hearing test guide
What Happens During a Hearing Test
Read through each stage of a hearing test so you know what to expect before you book. When you are ready, ask for an appointment at no cost and with no obligation to buy anything.
The conversation before the test begins
A hearing test starts with talking, not listening. The audiologist will ask about your ears, your health and the situations where you struggle to hear. They might ask if you have noticed ringing, or if speech gets lost in busy rooms. This is the time to mention anything that has been worrying you, even if it seems small.
They will also ask about your medical history. Certain medications, past infections and exposure to loud noise all affect how well you hear. The more detail you give, the easier it is for the audiologist to interpret the results later. You do not need to prepare notes in advance, but thinking about when you first noticed a change can help.
This part usually takes ten minutes. It sets the direction for everything that follows, so the specialist knows which frequencies to pay closest attention to and whether they should look inside your ears before starting the tones.
Looking inside your ears
Before any sounds play through headphones, the audiologist examines your ear canals. They use a small lighted instrument called an otoscope to check for wax build-up, infection or anything blocking the eardrum. This step matters because a simple plug of wax can muffle sound enough to skew the results of the whole test.
If the audiologist finds wax blocking the canal, they may suggest removing it first. A blocked ear changes how sound travels, so testing while it is full gives a false picture of your hearing. Ear wax removal is a separate procedure, and the specialist will explain what it involves before doing anything.
The examination itself is painless. You sit still while the audiologist tilts your head slightly and looks into each ear in turn. It takes only a minute or two per side. Once both ears are clear, the test can go ahead on a clean baseline.
Listening for quiet tones in a booth
The main part of the test happens in a sound-treated room or booth. You put on a pair of headphones, and the audiologist plays a series of tones. Each tone is a single pitch, starting at a volume you can hear clearly, then getting quieter until you can no longer pick it out.
Your job is to press a button or raise your hand every time you hear a sound, even if it is faint. The audiologist repeats this across several pitches, from low rumbles to high whistles. They test each ear separately, so you find out exactly where your hearing drops off on the left compared to the right.
The room is very quiet. You might notice the sound of your own breathing or heartbeat once the external noise is shut out. That silence is deliberate: it ensures nothing masks the softest tones. The whole process takes around twenty minutes, and there are no wrong answers. If you genuinely cannot hear a tone, staying silent is the correct response.
Testing how well you understand speech
Hearing pure tones is only half the picture. The audiologist will also play recorded words through the headphones and ask you to repeat them back. Some words are spoken softly, others at a normal conversational level. This measures how clearly your brain processes speech, not just whether your ears detect sound.
You might hear these words against a background of static or competing chatter. That simulates real life, where you rarely listen to someone in perfect silence. Struggling here explains why a busy pub makes conversation exhausting even if you think your hearing is fine.
Again, you simply say what you think you heard. The audiologist records your score as a percentage. Combined with the tone results, it builds a complete profile of how your hearing works day to day. If you wear glasses, bring them; reading a word list on a screen is sometimes part of this stage.
Reading your results together
Once the listening is finished, the audiologist plots your responses on a chart called an audiogram. It shows the softest sound you heard at each pitch for each ear. A line near the top means your hearing is sharp; a dip towards the bottom marks the frequencies where sound needs to be louder for you to notice it.
The audiologist walks you through this chart in plain language. They point out where your hearing sits compared to normal ranges and explain what the gaps mean for daily life. You might learn that you miss high consonants like S and F, which is why people seem to mumble.
This is also when you can ask questions. If the results show a loss, the audiologist discusses what happens next. That might mean a follow-up appointment, a referral to a doctor or a conversation about hearing aids. Nothing is decided on the spot. You leave with a copy of your audiogram and time to think.
Ask about a hearing test in Salford
Send your details and a local clinic will call you back to arrange a time. There is no charge for the enquiry and no pressure to proceed beyond the test itself.
- No cost to enquire
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- Local Salford clinics