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Auditory training

Auditory training

Benefit

Many people who do not need hearing aids have problems hearing well in noisy or echoey environments.

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Even with the best hearing aids possible, these problems can still persist. We offer specialised auditory training to help you make the most of your hearing in these difficult listening conditions.

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Auditory Training is also helpful for managing Auditory Processing Difficulties which can occur in both adults and children. You can be born with these difficulties, or they may appear later. Recurrent Glue ear is a common cause in children.

 

Who can benefit from Auditory Training?

Anyone who has the following difficulties:

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  • Difficulty hearing speech in noisy or reverberant conditions

  • Difficulty hearing speech clearly when several people are talking at once

  • Difficulty hearing speech clearly when it is spoken faster than normal

  • Difficulty remembering key words in a sentence

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These difficulties are often present in adults who have a hearing loss, as loss of hearing means that the tiny inner ear structures that are responsible for fine tuning of the hearing system have been damaged. Hearing aids can make sound louder, but cannot restore normal fine tuning of sound.

Hearing change
How does hearing change as I get older

How does hearing change as I get older

Most people as they get older retain good hearing for lower pitched sounds but have real difficulties with mid to higher-pitched sounds.

 

It is these mid to higher pitched sounds that give speech clarity – so if you don’t have good hearing for higher pitches then people will appear to mumble even though the volume is ok.

 

To make matters worse, background noise or echo simply masks out high frequency sound, so people with even a small degree of high frequency hearing loss can really struggle in noisy conditions. Auditory Training can really help.

What is auditory training?

Some auditory training tasks can be integrated into everyday life, and we will discuss these with you during your assessment appointment.

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We also offer the LACE programme (Listening and Communication Enhancement). LACE has been shown to improve general listening ability, and specific ability to hear in difficult listening situations (for example, background noise).

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LACE is web-based, and easy to use. You can log in and complete your training on any device connected to the internet. It consists of 11 sessions, each 30 minutes long, and provides Auditory Training tasks in five main areas:

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  • Speech-in-Noise – practice picking out voices in noisy environments like a restaurant or party.

  • Rapid Speech – stop asking people to speak slower and start understanding fast talkers more easily.

  • Competing Speaker – work on focusing on the person you want to hear when multiple speakers are present.

  • Target Word – improve your auditory memory to help you fill in the blanks in conversation.

  • Communication Strategies – communication strategies and tips to incorporate into your daily life.

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We will run through a demonstration of LACE with you in clinic, and further training sessions can be done at home. For best results you should try to complete 5 sessions per week.

 

Once you have completed LACE we can access your results, and discuss your progress with you. The results may also highlight particular areas where hearing aids need to be adjusted.

We believe that the importance of good counselling and support for you and your family cannot be underestimated. Hearing difficulty is a potentially isolating and devastating loss for both the person with the hearing difficulty and their family. Many changes in the way informal communication takes place are necessary. These are not always easy or natural and can place a significant strain on relationships. We are here to support you as much as we can.

Five main

Characteristics of APD in Children

  • Is your child easily distracted by sudden loud noises? Do they cope better in quieter settings?

  • Does your child have difficulty following multi-step directions / instructions?

  • Does your child have reading, spelling or speech and language difficulties?

  • Is your child forgetful or disorganised?

  • Does your child take longer to process information?

  • Are conversations difficult for your child to follow?

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Five main problem areas in children

  1. Auditory figure ground problems – difficulty paying attention because of noise in the background

  2. Auditory discrimination – difficulty distinguishing one word from another, or hearing speech clearly in background noise

  3. Auditory memory – difficulty remembering instructions, directions etc.

  4. Auditory attention – difficulty maintaining focus and listening long enough to complete a task

  5. Auditory cohesion – difficulty drawing inferences from conversation, verbal math problems, difficulty understanding riddles etc.

Strategies to help children with APD

Strategies to help children with APD

  • Acknowledge these issues are real and not within your child’s control

  • Reduce background noise

  • Eye-contact – ensure that your child looks at you when you are speaking

  • Use simple, expressive language

  • Give instructions at a slightly slower speed with a mildly increased volume

  • Keep instructions short and specific – ask your child to repeat the instructions

  • Pair listening with looking – give verbal and visual explanations to learning tasks

  • Ask your child to repeat instructions aloud until all have been completed

  • Allow your child “thinking time” in-between instructions

  • When teaching new concepts, your child will benefit from repetition

  • Predictable routines can help children remember instructions needed for a later date

  • Provide your child with a quiet place when doing independent work

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