How to conduct a hearing screening (simplified)
Simple instructions for running a hearing screening in Waisman 544
More detailed instructions are here: How to conduct a hearing screening (full) KB guide.
Run the test
- "Next you will complete a hearing screening. Please silence or turn off your cell phone and anything else that might make noise, then move to the other side of the desk and take a seat in the green chair."
- If the audiometer is already on, turn it off. Press and hold both knobs until the screen goes blank.
- Touch the "tone" button on the audiometer to turn it on.
- Give the participant instructions
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During the test, you will hear tones played through the headphones at different pitches and volumes. Whenever you hear a tone, immediately press the button on the clicker. Some of the tones will be very very quiet, so it's normal to not hear every one. Just press the button as soon as you do hear a tone.
The test takes about 10 minutes, and I will tell you when it's over.
Do you have any questions?
Go ahead and put the headphones securely over your ears. Red on the right, blue on the left.
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- Press the Hz wheel to cycle the menu. You should now see "HW" above F4
- Press F4. The audiometer will now automatically run through the Hughson-Westlake test.
- On the first few sounds, make sure the participant is clicking the button immediately, and isn't waiting until after the sound goes away. If they aren't doing it right, press Cancel on the audiometer (F4) and tell them what to do. Then restart the HW Test
- Sound is playing when the speaker icon in the top left has "sound waves" coming out of it.
- The button is being clicked when the | | icon in the top center fills in, like this |___|. Sometimes it will fill in for just a split second. If sound was playing when they clicked the button, the sound will also stop playing immediately.
- Once "HW test" disappears from the top of the screen and you instead see the default screen (30 dbHL, R ear, 1000 Hz), the test is done.
- When they're done: "You are finished with the hearing screening. Put the headphones and clicker back on the desk and move back to the other side of the desk, in front of the computer. Please wait a minute while I get the next part set up."
- Press the Hz wheel to cycle the menu and press F3 for "Thres"
- Use F2 and F3 to arrow through the thresholds.
- Because we are running this study with older adults (older than 56 years old), please look at the thresholds for each age group below
Younger (18-30) Middle aged (31-55) Older (56+) all frequencies: 25 dB HL or lower all frequencies: 25 dB HL or lower 250-2000Hz: 40 dB HL or lower
4000 Hz: 55 dB HL or lower
Save the data
- Open the Diagnostic Suite program on the computer.
- If the --> button is present, like in the picture, click the buttons and enter info in the specified certain order.
- If the --> button is not there, first try unplugging and replugging the leftmost grey cable on the audiometer. If it still doesn't show up, instead go to C:\Users\Public\Documents\hearing_screens and open the file called "zzTemplate.txt". Enter the values manually into the text file, then go to File >> Save As and save the name with the participant's initials. Close Diagnostic Suite and turn off the audiometer.
- Double click the desktop icon called "Audiometer Results - local" and check that a new file has been saved. (Or navigate to
C:/Users/Public/Documents/hearing_screens
) - Rename this file to the participant ID number
- Open the file and check that the audiogram was correctly loaded
- Close Diagnostic Suite. When it asks if you want to save, click No
Turn off the audiometer
- Press and hold both knobs until the screen goes blank