What is a “Speech Banana?”

A speech banana, in general terms, is where the phonemes – or the units of sound that are used to distinguish words from each other – of a language fall within an audiogram. Phonemes are different in every language and each word in the different language has a different contrast and meaning behind its phoneme. So what does this have to do with a “speech banana” and an audiogram? Well depending on the results of a person’s hearing test it can to determine where in speech a person is having problems hearing and why. The sounds within speech when plotted on an audiogram form a banana shape hence the word “speech banana.”

Knowing this information can help a person with hearing loss understand why they are having problems hearing certain words; distinguishing certain words from each other. A speech banana can be used to visually help a patient understand where their hearing loss is in relation to speech and why they are able to hear someone when they use words containing “z” or “v” easier than words containing “f” or “s.”

 The speech banana allows us to understand and help with a child’s hearing loss so that learning and communication problems do not arise as the child develops and grows. The elderly can greatly benefit from this as well for the exact same reasons as a child – to help with communication and create an understanding as to why there are problems or blocks when communicating to and with the person. For example a person with noise induced hearing loss will likely have problems with higher pitched phonemes such as the “th” or “s” sounds, while having an easier time hearing “m” or “z” sounds.

Having the speech banana greatly helps hearing health professionals show a person with hearing loss or the family of a person with hearing loss where and why there are problems with communication when hearing or listening or understanding words in general. The speech banana helps a child understand visually where their hearing loss is and why they have problems hearing certain words as well as saying certain words. The visual representation that a speech banana has for everyone in the hearing loss world helps to simplify what is going on for better understanding for an individual and their family and friends.