All About Hearing

Hearing, like all other senses, is an essential element for survival. More specifically, hearing is essential for verbal communication and directly impacts speech production. The process of hearing is called audition and the experts that deal with the screening, evaluation, treatment, and intervention of hearing and balance disorders are called audiologists.

The role of speech-language pathologists and other communication specialists in the process of hearing is to prevent scenarios that would make hearing less effective. There are four major components of the ear – the outer ear, middle ear, inner ear, and neural pathway. The anatomy and physiology of each component will be discussed in the succeeding pages.

The basic process of hearing is simple. The outer ear collects sound waves from the environment. Then, these sound waves reach the middle ear where they make the eardrum vibrate. After this, the vibrations will be transmitted through the ossicles, which are three tiny bones in the middle ear. Then, these vibrations travel to the inner ear (cochlea, in particular) which is a snail-shaped organ. The inner ear sends signals which are called nerve impulses to the brain. The brain then recognizes them as sounds.