How hearing protection changes speech understanding and what to do about it.
Source: Industrial Hygiene News: http://www.rimbach.com/
Supervisor: Hey – you aren’t wearing your earplugs. That’s the third time this week!
Employee: I know I know! But I just can’t hear Joe’s instructions! I had to take them out. It’s not my fault!
This classic interaction is played out everyday in the workplace. Employees, who struggle to hear, may remove their hearing protection temporarily and some may simply stop wearing hearing protection altogether. This response is likely to create a much bigger permanent communication problem: noise-induced hearing loss. In the meantime, worker complaints like this one may cause an employer to wonder:
“Is it reasonable to expect my employees to hear the sounds they need while they are wearing hearing protection?” After all, it does seem a bit counterintuitive to block the same sounds the wearer is trying to hear.
Understanding how hearing protection changes sound is an important step towards ensuring employees are appropriately protected from hazardous sound without impeding their safety or productivity. Hearing protection, worn properly, will decrease all sounds: both unwanted sounds (noise) and useful sounds such as speech and warning signals. With some attention, most communication issues can be resolved or at least improved. This article explains how hearing protection affects auditory communication and suggests approaches to overcoming difficult listening situations.
The ears on overdrive
The human hearing mechanism works most effectively at low and moderate sound levels. High sound levels, 85 dBA or greater, overdrive the auditory system and introduce distortion within the ear itself. Like the poor fidelity of overdriven speakers, overdriven ears cause signals to lose clarity, making speech difficult to understand. Wearing earplugs or earmuffs in a high noise environment is comparable to wearing sunglasses in intense sunlight. The filtering decreases the intensity and glare of bright sunlight to permit a more relaxed viewing experience. Like the photos in Figure 1, a day at the beach without sunglasses is harsh, causes squinting and perhaps a headache and early fatigue. But viewed through sunglasses the scenery is much more pleasant, the details easier to discern and the shadows and colors apparent. Likewise, hearing protection reduces the overall sound input that reaches the inner ear, allowing the auditory system to work more comfortably and effectively.
It takes two to communicate
Wearing hearing protection causes other changes. First, is a phenomenon called the occlusion effect. When the ears are blocked or plugged, external sounds become softer, but internal sounds seem louder and “echo” inside the head. People describe their own voice as “booming” or like “talking in a barrel.” As a result, when wearing hearing protection, employees are likely to speak more softly. Secondly, people tend to talk more quickly when wearing hearing protectors in noisy environments. The combination of talking more softly and quickly has obvious implications; the listener has more difficulty understanding the speaker. In the opening scenario, the employee removed his hearing protection to hear better, however, the speaker is still talking less loudly and too quickly, and the listener is hearing the factory sound at high levels. The problem isn’t solved by removing hearing protection and will only become worse over time as hearing is damaged.
Rest of the article: http://www.rimbach.com/scripts/Article/IHN/Number.idc?Number=237
Workplace INTEGRA is attending the 2010 Safety & Health Congress, August 1-4 in Murfreesboro, TN.
Workplace INTEGRA will feature Workplace Applications Software and INTEGRAfit at the 2010 Congress. The Tennessee Safety & Health Congress is being held at the Embassy Suites Hotel and Conference Center in Murfreesboro, TN.
Workplace Applications® occupational health and safety software provides companies an enterprise-wide solution to their workplace health and safety data management needs. The SQL server-based system is scalable from a single-user workstation up to hundreds of users on a corporate WAN. The Demographics driven software features the Audiometrics module for tracking a Hearing Conservation Program and the Health & Safety module for logging injuries, illnesses, OSHA logs, and much more.
A few of the Software Features:
- Extensive reporting and graphing capabilities
- Current users have said, "user friendly" and "easy to use"
- Use of Crystal Reports allows for the exporting and/or emailing of most reports in a variety of formats (.pdf, .xls, .doc) to managers and supervisors, or clients
- Use of data input "wizards" that guide you through the software
- All modules integrate with the Health and Safety module
- Medical spell checking in all of the modules
- Uses Microsoft's SQL Server database technology
- Can be installed on a standalone workstation or across a company-wide WAN connected to a corporate SQL Server database
- Workplace Applications is fully integrated with our hearing conservation, pulmonary consulting, and review programs
- Information can optionally be sent electronically to Workplace INTEGRA for professional review
Other modules include, INTEGRAfit, FMLA Tracking +, Safety, Pulmonary, and Surveillance. Here is a free access demonstration of Workplace Applications software.
In America today, many workers are receiving less than 5 decibels of protection from their earplugs. Why? Because achieving adequate hearing protection is not simple. It depends upon:
Selecting an earplug that fits each employee’s ears
Training that employee to properly use earplugs
Consistent proper use of those earplugs by the employee
INTEGRAfit is a hardware/software solution for the actual measurement of earplug noise reduction as the worker actually wears his/her earplugs.
No more reliance upon NRR ratings which can be grossly inaccurate for any person
No more guessing – measure it
Very powerful tool to train workers how to correctly insert earplugs
Takes less than 3 minutes
The best leading indicator of HCP effectiveness
Works with any earplug on the market
Workplace INTEGRA is holding a drawing for a gasoline card for the attendees of the TN Safety & Health Congress.
Stop by booth number 621 at the Tennessee Safety & Health Congress or call for more information; 888.WPI.0001.