If you struggle to understand what people say, you’re not alone. Many people experience this frustration—you can hear someone speaking clearly enough, but the actual words sound blurred together, making it difficult to grasp what they’re saying. For example, when you’re buying your favorite fall latte from More Than Coffee, you might mishear your total as “four dollars and sixty cents” when the barista actually said “four dollars and sixteen cents.” But why does this happen, and what can you do about it?
Understanding Why Speech Sounds Blurred With Hearing Loss
When you’re trying to listen to someone talk, but all the subtle, high-pitched sounds are missing or unclear, the phrases and words can start to run together. And in environments with background noise, this challenge is only amplified, making conversations even more exhausting.
Our ability to distinguish specific words relies on hearing a wide range of sound frequencies, from around 16 Hz to 16,000 Hz, though speech typically falls between 300 and 3,000 Hz. When hearing loss affects the higher frequencies, understanding speech becomes especially challenging. This is because many speech sounds, particularly consonants like “s,” “t” and “f,” are found in these higher frequencies. Losing access to consonants makes words sound muffled or similar, leaving you to piece together meaning without all the details.
What Can You Do to Understand Speech More Clearly?
Struggling to understand the specifics of a conversation can be highly frustrating. Fortunately, your audiology team can help you through a couple of helpful strategies to improve communication:
- Hearing aids. Hearing aids are designed to amplify specific frequencies based on your unique hearing loss, which can help bring back those crucial high-pitched sounds. Many models now include background noise suppression to help you focus on conversations in busy environments.
- Auditory training. If you’ve lived with untreated hearing loss for a long time, your brain might have “forgotten” some of the nuances in speech sounds. Auditory training exercises, like listening to audiobooks or practicing with recorded words, can retrain your brain and sharpen your ability to distinguish between similar sounds.
Don’t Let Hearing Loss Limit Your Conversations
With a few proactive steps, understanding speech doesn’t have to be a source of constant frustration. Hearing aids and auditory training can make conversations enjoyable again. If you’re ready to start hearing and understanding more clearly, contact Center for Hearing & Speech today to find the best hearing solution for your needs and restore the clarity you’re missing.
