Hearing Evaluation

For adults with no hearing concerns and no major risk factors, a baseline hearing evaluation between ages 50 and 60 is a smart starting point, with re-checks every two to three years from there. Adults with diabetes, a family history of hearing loss, regular noise exposure at work, a history of frequent ear infections, or unexplained tinnitus should test sooner and more often.

If you are noticing trouble in noisy restaurants, asking people to repeat themselves, turning the TV up, or struggling on phone calls, do not wait for your next routine check. Our Friendswood audiology team can usually schedule a comprehensive evaluation within a week or two.

No. A hearing evaluation is completely non-invasive and painless. You will sit in a quiet sound booth wearing comfortable insert earphones or headphones while your audiologist plays soft tones and recorded words at varying volumes — you simply respond when you hear or recognize what is presented. Tympanometry uses a soft probe tip that feels like brief pressure changes in the ear, similar to how your ears feel when an airplane descends.

Most patients are surprised by how relaxed the appointment feels. Our Friendswood audiologists pace the visit to your comfort, take breaks if needed, and walk you through every step before testing starts.

Your audiogram is a graph of the softest sounds you can hear at each pitch in each ear, plotted against typical hearing ranges. Your audiologist explains how your results map to mild, moderate, severe, or profound hearing loss, whether one or both ears are affected, and which type of hearing loss you have — sensorineural, conductive, mixed, or related to nerve and brain processing.

That detail shapes everything that comes next. The pattern of loss across pitches guides whether hearing aids, medical referral, vestibular testing, custom ear protection, or simply monitoring is the right next step. We send you home with a copy of your audiogram and walk through it together.