What Is An Audiometric Technician?

An audiometric technician is a part of the hearing health professionals group. An audiometric technician in the simplest form is a person who is certified to test an individual’s hearing at or by a workplace; essentially a workplace hearing test.

An audiometric technician must take an audiometric training course and government standard written and practical exam in order to become a certified audiometric technician. An audiometric technician may also become certified in many other industrial type testing’s that workplaces required their employees to have done prior to employment or to have check regularly throughout their employment such as spirometry, mask fit and ear mold impressions for custom ear molds.

Certified audiometric technicians are responsible for the testing of employees at different workplace sites. An audiometric technician will travel from workplace to workplace, in a cube vehicle housing a sound booth and testing equipment, to perform the required testing requested from each workplace.

Prior to testing at a worksite, the audiometric technician must ensure they are in a safe and quiet location on the worksite, so he desired testing can be performed with little to no distractions. A sound level meter is used to ensure the testing environment is suitable for testing and the reading is recorded; this machine measures the noise level in decibels.

When it is determined the environmental noise is suitable for testing, the audiometric technician will set up the workspace. This may include testing the sound booth to ensure it is sealed properly so no ambient noise can enter thus altering the test results, checking the audiometer to ensure it is functioning properly and making sure all cords to and from the machine and the sound booth are relaying the proper information back and forth. Finally, they will check their otoscope to ensure it is functioning properly.

Once the safety checks are complete the audiometric technician will call in individuals one at a time for privacy and to decrease any extra noise during the testing. Each individual will complete a form as required by the testing company, workplace and government regulations. Once the form is complete the audiometric technician will go over the form with the individual and ask any other questions that need clarification or more information on.

The audiometric technician will then enter the information into their system prior to testing to ensure consistency both currently and in the future for the individual. The audiometric technician will then check the individual’s ears for any abnormality or wax build up. If everything checks out the audiometric technician will have the individual go into the sound booth, will place the ear plugs or headphones on the person’s head and explain the testing process. The test is an air conduction pure tone test only testing at the frequencies for 500, 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, 6000 and 8000Hz only. The results are then recorded in the audiometric technicians system and are also written on a card for the individual’s personal record. The audiometric technician will also go over the results with each individual and will make any recommendations needed at that time to the individual.

Follow-up appointments are generally done on a yearly basis and all records are check for at least 10 years.