What type of hearing test uses headphones to deliver sounds?

Air conduction testing is a method used to assess a person's ability to hear sounds through the ear canal, which involves the use of headphones to deliver auditory stimuli directly to the listener's ears. In this test, sounds of various frequencies and intensities are played through the headphones, allowing the tester to identify the softest sounds the individual can hear. This approach evaluates the entire auditory pathway, which includes the outer ear, middle ear, inner ear, and auditory nerve.

In contrast, bone conduction testing bypasses the outer and middle ear by using vibrations delivered through a bone oscillator placed on the skull, which stimulates the inner ear directly. Speech recognition testing evaluates an individual's ability to understand and repeat spoken words, typically not done solely via headphones but often involving recorded or live speech. Tympanometry measures the movement of the eardrum in response to air pressure changes and does not involve the delivery of sounds at all. Therefore, air conduction testing specifically fits the criteria of using headphones to deliver sounds.