Mild Sensorineural
A gently sloping loss: near normal at low pitches, and mild from about 2 kHz up. Quiet speech can be hard to hear, and following a conversation in a noisy room takes real effort. It can be there from birth or show up at any age, and it’s often the point where hearing aids first come up.
Summary
- Severity
- Mild29 dB HL
- Most loss at
- 4 kHz · 40 dB
Degree of the worse ear, averaged over all eight frequencies, on the scale used by U.S. audiologists (ASHA)
Pure-tone average (PTA)
- Left ear
- 22dB
- Slight
- Right ear
- 22dB
- Slight
What’s a pure-tone average?
Pure-tone average is the quietest tone each ear can just hear, averaged across three pitches central to speech (500 Hz, 1 kHz, and 2 kHz). It’s the single number U.S. audiologists use to sum up an audiogram. 15 dB or lower is normal hearing, and every 10 dB higher means sounds need to be about twice as loud to be heard. Internationally, the World Health Organization averages four pitches, adding 4 kHz, so where high pitches have more loss its number comes out higher.
Thresholds by frequency
| Hz | L | R |
|---|---|---|
| 250 | 10 | 10 |
| 500 | 15 | 15 |
| 1k | 20 | 20 |
| 2k | 30 | 30 |
| 3k | 35 | 35 |
| 4k | 40 | 40 |
| 6k | 40 | 40 |
| 8k | 40 | 40 |