A screening tells you whether you can hear a beep. An evaluation tells you what you are actually missing, and why. You sit in a sound-treated booth for testing across the full range of frequencies, then complete speech understanding testing twice - once in a quiet room and once with background noise playing, because the two often score very differently. A middle-ear check rules out fluid or blockage as a simpler explanation before anything else is discussed.
The result is an audiogram - a chart of what you can hear at each frequency and volume - and we go through it with you line by line before you leave, not mailed to you afterward. You take a copy home. If devices are the right next step, we will say so plainly, and if they are not yet, we will say that too.
Fitting is where the real difference between an audiologist and a retail hearing-aid counter shows up. A device programmed to an average curve fits nobody in particular. Ours are programmed to your individual audiogram and checked with real-ear measurement, a probe placed briefly in the ear canal that confirms the sound reaching your eardrum, not just what the manufacturer's software assumes it should be.
