May is National Speech-Language Hearing Month
by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition
Photo Credit: SHVETS production
The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) announced that May is National-Speech-Language-Hearing Month. As readers of this blog may know, I’m not big on special days, months, or years. If someone or something is important, they or it should be acknowledged every day, month or year. As my dear mother told me many years ago, my brothers and I couldn’t give her a present on Mother’s Day and have it mean anything if we didn’t clean up our toys in the living room and not fight with each other every other day of the year.
Despite that, I would reluctantly agree that the special days, months, or years do help draw attention to whoever or whatever it is that is being highlighted. ASHA states that the special month “provides an opportunity to raise awareness about communication disorders and the role of ASHA members in providing life-altering treatment.” Hearing has been called the social sense. Helen Keller is quoted as having said, “Blindness separates people from things. Deafness separates people from people.”
I think that’s true. The importance of hearing and of preventing hearing loss by avoiding loud noise isn’t widely understood. It’s not clear to me that ASHA understands the importance of prevention. I wish ASHA would revise the statement on its webpage about Loud Noise Dangers, which still states, “Sounds at 85 dBA* can lead to hearing loss if you listen to them for more than 8 hours at a time. Sounds over 85 dBA can damage your hearing faster. The safe listening time is cut in half for every 3-dB rise in noise levels over 85 dBA.”
That statement is true but misleading. The industrial-strength 85 dBA noise exposure level was recommended by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in 1972. That noise exposure limit doesn’t prevent noise-induced hearing loss in workers, and certainly isn’t safe for the public and especially not for infants, children, and teens. The NIOSH recommended exposure limit needs to be revised downwards for a number of reasons, the primary one being that it assumed workers had quiet environments when not at work, something that is no longer necessarily true.
For the public, preventing noise-induced hearing loss and two other noise-induced disorders, tinnitus (ringing in the ears) and hyperacusis (a sensitivity to noise that doesn’t bother others) is simple and inexpensive. If something sounds loud, it’s too loud and one’s auditory health is at risk. Turn down the volume, use hearing protection, or leave the noisy environment.
*A-weighting adjusts unweighted sound measurements to reflect the frequencies heard in human speech. A-weighting is used in occupational health because the inability to understand speech is the compensable workplace injury.
