What Is an Audiogram and How Do I Read Mine?

If you've just had a hearing screening and come away with a chart full of dots, lines and numbers, you're not alone. Here's everything you need to know to read your audiogram with confidence.

You've had your hearing test, and now you're holding a piece of paper with a graph on it that honestly looks a bit like a game of noughts and crosses. That graph is your audiogram, and while it might seem confusing at first glance, it's actually one of the most useful tools you'll ever come across for understanding your own hearing.

In this guide, we'll walk you through exactly how to read an audiogram, what the symbols mean, and how to work out what your results say about your hearing health, all in plain English, with no medical jargon required.

What Is an Audiogram?

An audiogram is simply a graph of your hearing screening results. It plots how well you can hear sounds at different pitches (frequencies) and volumes (intensities), with a separate line or set of symbols for each ear. Your audiologist uses this graph to work out whether you have hearing loss, how severe it is, and which type it is, which then shapes any advice or treatment they recommend.

Think of it as a map of your hearing. Once you know how to read the map, you can see exactly where your hearing is strong and where it might need a bit of support.

How to Read an Audiogram: Understanding the Chart

Every audiogram is built around two axes, and once you understand what each one represents, the rest falls into place fairly quickly.

The Horizontal Axis: Frequency (Pitch)

Running along the bottom of the chart, from left to right, is frequency, measured in Hertz (Hz). This tells you how high or low a sound is:

• Low frequencies (125–500 Hz) sit on the left. These are deeper sounds, like thunder, bass notes or a man's voice.
• High frequencies (2000–8000 Hz) sit on the right. These are sharper sounds, like birdsong, or consonants such as "s", "f" and "th" in speech.

A helpful way to picture it is to think of a piano keyboard laid along the bottom of the chart. The low, deep keys on the left of the piano represent the low frequencies, and as you move your finger along the keyboard to the right, you move through to the higher, sharper keys, just like moving across the audiogram from low to high frequency.

High-frequency hearing loss is one of the most common patterns we see, and it's often why people say they can hear that someone is talking but struggle to make out the words, particularly in noisy environments.

The Vertical Axis: Intensity (Loudness)

Running down the side of the chart is intensity, measured in decibels (dB). This works a little differently to what you might expect:

• Soft, quiet sounds sit at the top of the chart (around 0 dB, sometimes even into negative numbers).
• Loud sounds sit towards the bottom of the chart (up to 120 dB).

So, unlike most graphs, "up" is good news here. The higher up the chart your results sit, the softer the sounds you can hear, and the better your hearing at that pitch. The further down the chart, the louder a sound needs to be before you can hear it.

Reading the Symbols: X's, O's and What They Mean

On most UK audiograms, you'll see two sets of symbols:

• X (usually blue): your left ear
• O (usually red): your right ear

Each symbol marks the quietest volume you could hear at that particular pitch, known as your hearing threshold. If you see brackets or arrow-like symbols alongside the X's and O's, these usually relate to bone conduction testing, which checks how sound travels through the bones of your skull rather than through your ear canal, helping your audiologist work out exactly where in your ear any hearing loss is coming from.

What Do the Results Mean? Degrees of Hearing Loss Explained

Once your results are plotted, the position of your symbols on the vertical axis tells you the degree of any hearing loss. Here's a general guide used across the hearing care profession:

Your results might also show a different shape or degree of loss between your left and right ear, or between low and high frequencies. This is completely normal, hearing loss is very rarely identical across both ears or every pitch.

What Is the "Speech Banana"?

You may hear your audiologist mention the "speech banana", a banana-shaped area often overlaid on an audiogram to show where the sounds of everyday speech typically fall. If your hearing thresholds sit within this area, you're generally able to detect most of the sounds used in conversation. If your symbols fall below it, certain speech sounds, particularly softer consonants, may be much harder to catch, even if you can technically hear that someone is speaking.

It's a useful visual shortcut, but it's not the full picture. Understanding speech isn't just about whether a sound reaches your ear; it's also about how clearly your brain can process it, which is why your audiologist will look at your whole audiogram alongside how you're coping day-to-day, not just where your marks fall against the banana.

What Should I Do After Reading My Audiogram?

Understanding your own results is a brilliant first step, but your audiogram works best when it's read alongside professional guidance. Once you know what your chart is showing, here's what typically comes next:

• If your results are within the normal range, that's great news, though it's worth having your hearing checked again in a year or two, particularly if you're regularly exposed to loud noise.
• If your results show some degree of hearing loss, your audiologist will talk you through your options, which may include hearing aids suited to your specific pattern of loss.
• If your hearing loss is asymmetrical, sudden, or comes with symptoms like dizziness or pain, it's worth seeking further medical advice before exploring hearing aids.

At Wholesale Hearing, your audiogram is exactly what our UK-based audiologists use to match you with the right device and programme it to your individual hearing profile, whether that's a Phonak, Signia or Resound hearing aid. You simply send us your results and we'll take care of the rest.

Frequently Asked Questions