How Can I Test My Hearing at Home?

Many people begin having trouble with their hearing as they age, or due to an accident or being exposed to constant loud noises. Sometimes you may not realize your hearing is fading until it is almost gone. Having a hearing test performed at a doctor's office can be costly, but there are simple ways to check your own hearing at home.

Internet

• The Internet has some great resources for doing at-home hearing tests. One online test, at the website Noiseaddicts.com, lists a wide range of musical tones that go from 8 kHz all the way up to 22,000 kHz. Listening to the tones one by one will help you determine the point at which your high-frequency hearing cuts off.

  Another test, available at Hear-the-world.com, tests how well you can hear and understand speech in the presence of distracting noise.

  You will need a set of speakers or headphones for these tests. Make sure to take them in a quiet place with minimal or no background noise.

CD Hearing Tests

• You can purchase an audio hearing test on CD from many bookstores or online stores. These screening tools offer test tones and calibration for easy and inexpensive at-home use. Frequency ranges from 20 Hz to 20 kHz, and the tests can be performed over the entire set of frequencies or restricted to a certain portion. All you need is a quiet place, a CD player and a set of headphones.