Is Auditory Training a Good Idea to Retrain your Brain to Hear?

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Is Auditory Training a Good Idea to Retrain your
Brain to Hear?
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• Do you know you listen to sounds through your
  ears but its your brain that makes those sounds
  meaningful to you?

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• If you have hearing loss, hearing aids and other
  devices will amplify sounds so that you can hear
  better. However, your brain may still be
  struggling to interpret what you hear, especially
  if you have age-related hearing loss. Hearing
  aids only deal with sounds and not your brain.

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• Neurological research over the years has reported
  that it is the brain that plays a central role in
  hearing. The ears may be responsible for
  capturing sound, but its the brain that
  processes the information further, stimulating
  people to take actions. Because of this ear-brain
  connection, even a mild hearing loss can create
  some major changes in the brain, which can
  negatively impact your

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• Auditory memory
• Sound processing speed
• Ability to discriminate sounds

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• This explains why hearing-impaired people find it
  difficult to process sounds in a noisy or loud
  environment like restaurants or parties even
  after wearing hearing aids.
• And that is where auditory training comes in.
  Auditory training can slow down, stop and even
  reverse hearing problems and complications that
  originate in the brain.

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WHO CAN BENEFIT FROM AUDITORY TRAINING?

• Auditory training is sometimes referred to as
  aural rehabilitation or hearing exercises.
  The training involves a mix of in-office sessions
  and at-home exercises, just like in physical
  therapy. This form of therapy is currently
  popular amongst cochlear implant patients
  (especially children) as well as people diagnosed
  with other auditory issues like auditory
  processing disorder.

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WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT FROM AUDITORY TRAINING?

• Just like a physical therapist gives you a set of
  exercises to help strengthen your muscles, an
  auditory training program focuses on key skills
  like working memory and auditory processing speed.

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• To be able to understand and actively participate
  in a conversation, you need to tap on your
  working memory, the short-term memory that holds
  onto the speech, words and their context. The
  research suggests that declines in working memory
  can drag down speech understanding in older
  people.

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• Auditory training may also target your auditory
  processing speed. Older people often have trouble
  keeping up. The average person speaks approx. 150
  words per minute however, it is common for the
  auditory processing speed to drop steadily in
  many people, as they age.

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• With the help of auditory training, the
  hearing-impaired individuals are able to filter
  out distractions to hear speech in noisy
  environments.

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Does Auditory Training Work?

• In a study, older volunteers who wore hearing
  aids were asked to practice for three and a half
  hours a week with a program designed to challenge
  their ability to understand speech in noisy
  backgrounds.

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• After eight weeks, it was noted that they could
  correctly identify 25 more words in spoken
  sentences, even with the presence of background
  disturbances.

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• But a lot of the people who participated were not
  much interested in continuing their training as
  they felt the program might not help in real-life
  situations or was a complete bore.

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• However, when the auditory training combines with
  quality traditional or wireless hearing aids, it
  can be of great assistance to those who have
  difficulty distinguishing between sounds in noisy
  settings.

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• Hearing Aid Specialists SA
• Castle Plaza Shopping Centre
• 992 South Road
• Edwardstown SA 5039
• Phone [phone]
• Email ID reception_at_hassa.com.au
• Website URL http//www.hassa.com.au/