What Is a Booth Hearing Test?
In a booth hearing test, the person being tested (baby, child, or adult) is placed in a special room, basically a soundproof room. The soundproof room is divided into two halves separated by a window. The person being tested is in one half, and the audiologist is in the other half. The audiologist may be visible through the window.The child or adult sits in the booth wearing headphones, hearing aids/implants, or not wearing anything. The audiologist asks the child or adult to signal when they can hear a sound. This signaling is usually done by raising the hand, or pressing a button on a hand-held signaler.
The audiologist plays recorded frequencies or sound tones at different volumes or levels, testing each ear separately or both ears at the same time. The sounds are made louder or softer until a response occurs. (Of course, if there is no response, it means the sound is not heard). I do not know what the sounds are, but in my own experience the sounds have been high and low pitched "squeal-like" sounds. At my last hearing test, one sound was made so loud it made my left ear itch, and I could feel the ear covering vibrate.
The part of the hearing test that people with hearing loss readily identify with, is the spondee (two long syllables or two stressed syllables) speech recognition test. In this part of the booth test, the audiologist covers his or her mouth so you can not cheat by lipreading. The audiologist then says words from a selected list of words. These two-syllable words have been selected for their vowel sounds. The words are usually "ice cream, baseball, cowboy, hotdog, airplane, playground," etc. The person being tested tells the audiologist what they think the word sounded like.
Also as part of the booth testing, the audiologist will often do a test (tympanogram) to check the ear drums, and/or a bone conduction test.
Testing a Baby/Toddler/Young Child
Babies, toddlers, and young children obviously can not be relied on to signal if they hear a sound, so it is done differently with them. A baby is taught to turn to a sound. When the baby turns to the sound, the baby is "rewarded" with the sight of a toy lighting up or moving. This is called Visual Reinforcement Audiometry.An alternative method is Play Audiometry. In Play Audiometry, the young child, who is wearing headphones, touches or moves a toy.
Accuracy of Booth Hearing Tests
I do not know how accurate a booth hearing test is. I do my best and try to give honest answers on booth hearing tests, but have such a hard time knowing if I am hearing the sounds that I don't know how accurate my results are. At my last hearing test, I was encouraged to state if I "felt" the sound versus "hearing" it.The accuracy of test results (the resulting audiogram) is really dependent on the cooperativeness of the person being tested, as well as other factors such as the speech of the audiologist or how well the headphones fit.
