HOW BAD IS A YOUNG MANS HIGH-FREQUENCY HE ARING IN 1982

In the course of a clinical study we examined young men believed to ha ve normal hearing. Volunteers with a positive history for noise deafne ss were excluded from further study. Normal hearing was verified by pu re-tone audiometry if the hearing loss did not exceed 15 dB for each t est tone between 250 Hz and 8000 Hz. As this limit is far below normat ive threshold values (DIN ISO 7029) we expected to find a large number of otological normal subjects. Using pure-tone audiometry, ABR and no ise exposure, we found that 65% of the young male volunteers (mean age 25 years) did not meet the criteria for audiologic normality. The pur e-tone thresholds for these subjects were comparable to the expected l evels of their fathers' generation.