Time to Read: 8 minutes
We take a look at some of the key terms your audiologist may use to describe your ears and your hearing. Let's start from the letter A.
Acoustic Nerve - also known as the vestibulocochlear nerve that runs from the inner ear to the brainstem and contains fibres carrying both auditory and vestibular information.
Acuity - In hearing terms, it refers to the clarity or audibility of sound
AD (Auris Droit): From the Latin meaning Right Ear
Air-Conduction Thresholds: The lowest level that an individual can hear a pure tone stimulus presented through headphones or insert earphones. During a hearing test, air conduction thresholds are measured at several frequencies associated with the normal pitch range of the human voice and graphed out onto an audiogram.
Amplifier - An electronic sound processor located inside a hearing aid that increases the incoming signal to improve the audibility of the outgoing signal.
Ampulla - the enlarged section of the semicircular canal in which the sense organ for head rotation is located.
Antihelix - part of the pinna that is just beyond the concha, it is a rim of cartilage.
Arch of Corti - also called pillars of corti. It is the supporting structure located between the inner and outer hair cells within the organ of Corti.
Anacusis - Absence of sound. Deafness.
AS (Auris Sinister): From The Latin meaning Left Ear
Audiogram - A chart onto which is graphed the results of a hearing test. The chart has intensity levels listed on one axis and frequencies (pitches) listed on the other axis.
Auricle - The pinna. The cartilaginous structures of the external ear located peripheral to the skull.
Basilar membrane - membrane inside the cochlea that separates scala media and scala tympani; on this membrane rests the organ of Corti.
Binaural - refers to when sound is presented in both ears
Binaural Squelch - the improved ability to focus on a desired sound the presence of undesired sounds when you hear it through both ears.
Central Auditory Processing - The Awareness of an auditory signal in the central nervous system that occurs beyond the peripheral auditory system (the ears) and the interpretation/processing of that signal
Cerumen - Earwax
Cilia - tiny hair-like projections on a cell which are found in many parts of the middle ear.
Cochlea - the snail-shaped portion of the inner ear that contains the haircells and nerve endings that convert a sound from the mechanical movements in the middle ear to an electrical charge to send to the brain for processing.
Cochlear nucleus - the group of nerve cells just medial to the Acoustic Nerve.
Compression - An internal feature present in most current hearing aids that helps to control the intensity of higher volumes.
Conductive Hearing Loss - A decrease in your ability to hear a particular sound due to an inefficiency or disruption in the outer ear or the middle ear system. In effect the sound is 'blocked' travelling to the cochlea.
Congenital Hearing Loss - Hearing loss which occurs at or before birth.
Decibel - A unit for expressing the relative loudness of a sound.
Diplacusis - Perceiving a single tone as multiple tones or multiple harmonics
Exostosis - A bony growth in the ear canal
Feedback - The high pitched whistling sound that can be emitted by a hearing aid when the hearing aid's microphone picks up its own output, thus reamplifying itself.
Footplate - the portion of the stapes bone.
Hertz - cycles per second. A name given to describe the frequency or pitch of a sound.
Induction coil - The telecoil inside a hearing aid that is activated by electro-magnetic energy coming from a telephone or assistive listening device.
Modiolus - the centre core of the cochlea. The acoustic nerve runs through the modiolus before exiting via the internal auditory meatus.
Monaural - refers to when sound is present only to one ear.
Occlusion - The sensation that results from plugging up the ear canal with cerumen an unvented hearing aid, or a foreign body.
Otalgia - Ear pain or earache.
Otoscope - a magnifying and lighting tool used by healthcare workers to look into the ear canal.
Otosclerosis - An abnormal condition of the middle ear in which there is a formation of spongy bone onto the footplate of the stapes resulting in a conductive hearing loss.
Ototoxic medications - Prescription or over-the-counter drugs that can have a temporary or permanent detrimental effect on hearing or balance.
Oval Window - A connection between the stapes footplate of the middle ear and the fluid-filled inner ear through which sound vibrations pass in a normal auditory system.
Pinna - The cartilaginous structure of the external ear located peripheral to the skull.
Presbycusis - hearing loss attributable to the aging process
Receiver - The speaker inside a hearing aid that converts the amplified electrical energy to soundwaves.
Signal to noise ratio - The relationship between the intensity of the desired sound (signal) and other undesired sounds (noise). the louder the speech signal is presented in comparison to the background noises, the better chance a person has an understanding the speech signal.
Soma - the body of a nerve cell.
Stapedius - a muscle residing in the pyramidal eminence on the posterior wall of the middle ear space whose tendon is attached to the neck to the stapes. Contraction of the stapedial muscle increases the stiffness of the middle ear system and reduced the transmission of low frequency sound through the middle ear.
Stapes - The smallest and last bone in the ossicular chain. It attached to the oval window of the inner ear.
Tinnitus - The perception of the presence of sound in one or both ears that is not associated with an external sound source. It can be constant or intermittent and of various volume levels , pitches and complexities.
Vertigo - A sensation of spinning experienced by individual with vestibular problems.
Vestibular System - The inner ear portion of the balance system.
