Hearing loss impacts more than one in 10 people in the United States. Hearing loss doesn’t just muffle sounds. It can also make it harder for your brain to recognize familiar noises. Without treatment, the brain starts to forget how to process certain sounds, making it challenging to adjust even after getting hearing aids. That’s where auditory training comes in.
How Does Auditory Training Work?
Auditory training uses a series of exercises that help train the brain to recognize and interpret speech sounds for better communication clarity. Auditory training isn’t just for people with untreated hearing loss. It can be a great tool to help patients who recently started hearing loss treatment or those with auditory processing disorder (APD), a disorder wherein you can hear but not distinguish between similar sounds.
Key Areas of Focus in Auditory Training
Auditory training focuses on learning to distinguish between similar sounds or words, identify the direction of sound, remember and recall auditory information and process speech amidst background noise.
Common Auditory Training Exercises
There are a few different types of auditory training exercises you can try based on your specific needs, including but not limited to:
- Speech-in-noise training. People with hearing loss often struggle to understand speech amidst background noise–causing communication difficulties in situations like busy Friday night dinners at Proof On Main. Speech-in-noise training involved listening to speech with accompanying background sound to improve focus and comprehension.
- Auditory attention and memory exercises. During auditory attention and memory exercises, you’ll listen to and repeat a series of sounds or sentences. This may include answering questions about the sentences you heard to test your understanding.
- Phenome exercises. Phenome exercises help improve your ability to differentiate between similar-sounding words. Your program or partner will read two similar-sounding words or sentences, and you will try to identify which words they spoke.
- Text following. Text following exercises help you develop your active listening skills. To perform the exercise, you can have a partner or program read a passage to you while you follow along with the text. Pairing audiobooks with a hard copy version of the text is a great way to practice this exercise!
Improving your auditory discrimination will help you communicate clearly and can increase your confidence in social situations. To learn more about how auditory training and hearing loss treatment can benefit you, contact Heuser Hearing Institute today to schedule an appointment with one of our specialists.