The Action on Hearing Loss Hearing Check is designed to help identify people who have hearing loss and encourage them to take action. It is a hearing check rather than a full hearing assessment so we therefore encourage anyone who is concerned about their hearing check result to seek more detailed advice from a GP or audiologist.

The online and telephone hearing checks are ‘speech in-noise’ checks. They assess the ability to hear someone speaking when there’s background noise, similar to being in a crowded room. The advantage of this kind of check is that it checks hearing ability in a real-life way.

During the check a voice repeats sets of three randomly generated numbers for the user to try to hear and key in. The better the person does, the harder the check will become. At the end of the hearing check, a result is given. It does not produce a conventional audiogram.

Background

Action on Hearing Loss developed the first national telephone Hearing Check in English based on a Dutch language version used in the Netherlands.

It has been scientifically validated at a number of universities within the UK. The Welsh language telephone Hearing Check has since been developed and validated.

We would like to thank BT for their generous donation, which has helped to create this hearing check.