Degrees of hearing loss are generally classified as mild, moderate, severe or profound. Hearing loss that borders between two categories is typically described as a combination of the two categories (for example, thresholds at 60 dB HL might be called moderate-to-severe). The exact cutoff points for each category vary slightly according to different publications and different audiologists, but they are roughly as follows:
Audiometric thresholds ranging from 25-40 dB HL constitutes a mild hearing loss:
Audiometric thresholds ranging from 40-60 dB HL constitutes a moderate hearing loss:
Audiometric thresholds ranging from 60-80 dB HL constitutes a severe hearing loss:
Audiometric thresholds ranging from about 80-90 dB HL constitutes a severe-to-profound hearing loss:
Audiometric thresholds greater than 90 dB HL constitutes a profound hearing loss:
