The speech banana is the range of frequencies and decibel levels covered by normal human speech, represented on an audiogram. Hearing loss within this range can affect communication and learning, but hearing aids can help. Some people may have a cognitive impairment that affects speech understanding despite good hearing. Regular hearing tests are important for early identification of hearing loss.
The speech banana is a colloquial term to refer to the frequency and decibel range covered by normal human speech. This term is a reference to the form this range takes when mapped onto a graph with frequencies on one axis and decibel levels on the other. When people undergo hearing tests, the person taking the test pays special attention to hearing loss that falls under the speech banana.
To understand the speech banana, it can help to know how an audiogram, a graph of hearing test results, is laid out. The horizontal axis of the graph contains information about the frequencies a person can hear, from top to bottom. The vertical axis details the decibel levels that a person’s ears can pick up, plotted with the lowest levels at the top and the highest at the bottom. The speech banana is about a third down the graph.
Someone who has difficulty hearing normal human speech may have difficulty learning to speak, understanding conversations, and learning material presented in a spoken format. People with mild hearing loss may not realize that they cannot hear normally. Hearing-impaired children often have difficulty in the classroom because they can’t hear the teacher speak, but they don’t realize that their hearing is impaired because they can hear sounds in other ranges. Regular hearing tests are designed to identify hearing loss early so that interventions can be provided.
When a hearing test is conducted, the results can be plotted to show the range of sounds the test subject can hear. People with good hearing will have results that are above the speech banana, meaning they can hear sounds at both lower and higher frequencies than normal human speech and lower decibel levels than normal human speech. If the hearing test results fall below or within the speech banana, it means that the person may be having difficulty hearing people speak.
One approach to hearing loss is to fit the person with hearing aids. The hearing aids are adjusted and tested to generate a new audiogram showing what the person can hear while wearing the hearing aids. The goal is to provide the person with the ability to hear the normal range of human speech to facilitate communication. In other cases, the hearing loss can be so profound that hearing aids cannot provide people with a range of hearing that falls within the banana of speech. These individuals may need people to speak louder around them, or they may consider using communication modalities such as sign language to facilitate conversation.
When a person’s hearing test results are recorded, the test administrator often draws an outline around the speech banana to create a visual reference that can be compared to hearing ability. It is important to be aware that it is possible for people to have excellent hearing combined with an auditory processing disorder that makes understanding speech difficult. For these people, the problem isn’t hearing loss, but a cognitive impairment that interferes with the way the brain processes sound.
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