At South East Hearing Care Centres, we understand that booking a hearing test can feel daunting. With over 25 years of experience and clinics located in Horsham, Chichester, Seaford, Bexhill, and Eastbourne, we’re here to ensure your experience is professional, comfortable, and informative.
A hearing test is more than a quick check — it’s a thorough, personalised assessment of your hearing health. Here’s what you can expect during your appointment with one of our qualified audiologists.
What can you expect during a hearing test?
A Detailed Consultation
It’s essential to have your hearing tested by a qualified hearing aid audiologist, just as you would visit a doctor for a health check-up.
The hearing test begins with collecting basic, confidential personal information and questions about your medical history, lifestyle, and specific hearing challenges. This helps the audiologist understand your hearing needs.
Examination of the Ear Canal and Ear Drum
Several diagnostic tests may be conducted to evaluate your hearing health. The audiologist will use advanced equipment like video otoscopy and microscopes to check for blockages, infections, or eardrum damage.
While ear wax is normal, excessive buildup may need removal through irrigation or gentle vacuum micro-suction.
Tympanometry – Middle Ear Function Test
To assess the mobility of the eardrum and the function of the middle ear bones, we perform tympanometry. This non-invasive test uses air pressure changes in the ear canal and provides valuable diagnostic information, especially when differentiating between sensorineural and conductive hearing loss.
The reasoning behind a tympanometry is to test middle ear function to determine the efficacy of the three small middle ear bones and the movement of the eardrum. The results are plotted on a graph called a tympanogram.
Pure Tone Audiometry
You’ll be seated in a soundproof booth and fitted with headphones or ear inserts. A range of tones at different pitches and volumes will be played. Simply press a button whenever you hear a sound.
This test helps us create an audiogram, a visual representation of your hearing ability across frequencies.
Speech-in-Noise Testing
To reflect real-world situations, we perform a speech discrimination test, sometimes in background noise. You’ll be asked to repeat words or sentences, helping us assess how well you hear in noisy environments — a common concern for many.
Speech discrimination tests are rarely performed by other companies, but we believe this is an important part of the process.
Results & Explanation
We take the time to clearly explain your audiogram, overlaying it with real-world sound examples (e.g., birdsong, speech, or traffic) so you can visualise what you can and cannot hear.
This includes a hearing aid and hearing loss simulation to help you understand how your hearing may improve with support.
Free Online Hearing Test
At South East Hearing Care Centres, we understand that booking a hearing test can feel daunting. With over 25 years of experience and clinics located in Horsham, Chichester, Seaford, Bexhill, and Eastbourne, we’re here to ensure your experience is professional, comfortable, and informative.
Why choose South East Hearing Care Centres for your hearing test?
Over 25 years of experience
We have helped thousands of people remain connected over nearly 25 years of service. Being established for such a long period allows us to rely on our in-depth knowledge and exposure to many different scenarios to find the best solution and advice for you.
State-of-the-art equipment
All our clinics are centres of excellence and fully equipped with the latest state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment. This guarantees accurate results and information about your ears that most other hearing centres wouldn’t have access to.
An unrushed, thorough experience
Your appointment will take around 90 minutes and is never rushed. We take the time to understand you and your hearing needs in detail, ensuring accurate fittings and the best possible outcome. Our approach is rooted in careful assessment, precise measurements, and clear verification.
Centre of Excellence accreditation
All our procedures are executed to the highest of standards to maintain our Centre of Excellence accreditation which requires all our audiology staff undergo continuing professional development, ongoing study and reflection of our practices.