Listening is an active skill; when you don’t use the skill regularly, it can dwindle. One thing that can cause that dwindling is the auditory deprivation you experience with hearing loss.
After we diagnose you with hearing loss, we’ll likely recommend treatment with hearing aids. These devices are effective tools that amplify speech to make communication easier. However, because their brains aren’t used to listening, many new hearing aid users still struggle to understand speech. Auditory training is one tool you can use to bridge this gap.
What is Auditory Training?
Auditory training is a set of exercises designed to improve your listening and speech comprehension. We often prescribe it for auditory processing disorder—where the ears hear, but the brain can’t understand speech—but it can be an effective tool for new hearing aid users.
The training helps you recognize subtle differences between similar-sounding words, locate the direction of sound, understand speech amid background noise and improve your ability to remember details from a conversation. Depending on the areas of speech you struggle with, we may recommend one or more of the following:
- Phoneme recognition: practice identifying similar-sounding words like “fifteen” and “fifty”
- Sound locating: listen to sound from different directions and identify the direction it’s coming from
- Speech-in-noise: listen to sentences with varying levels of background noise and try to understand what’s being said and the context of the speech
- Text following: read along to an audiobook or follow a script while listening to the spoken version (this is a great exercise to practice at home)
- Memory and attention training: listen to sequences of sounds, words or sentences and try to recall or summarize what you heard
Practicing the above exercises after you get your first pair of hearing aids will help you retrain your brain and enjoy every conversation, whether you’re chatting with a friend in a quiet room or talking to a server above the clatter of dishes at Palace Restaurant & Saloon.
Schedule Your Hearing Appointment
Combining auditory training exercises with the advanced technology of your hearing aids will set you on the path to easier listening in no time. For more information on hearing loss treatment, contact Prescott Ear, Nose, Throat & Allergy today.