Trouble understanding speech sounds doesn’t always lie only in hearing loss but also in processing noise information. Auditory training is the process of teaching the brain how to correctly interpret and listen to sound. It can be effective at helping those with an auditory processing disorder, a disorder wherein the individual hears but cannot process sound, as well as helping people with hearing loss process information from their hearing aids.
Audiobooks can be an effective auditory training tool. Let’s examine how auditory training works and how audiobooks can help.
How Does Auditory Training Work?
Auditory training teaches individuals with hearing loss or auditory processing disorder to use all auditory signals to understand and discriminate between sounds. Auditory training enhances four auditory skills, including:
- Sound awareness
- Sound discrimination
- Sound identity
- Sound comprehension
Some exercises used in auditory training may include the following:
- Word stress. Your teacher or partner will read sentences for you and stress certain words to help you identify emphasis.
- Differentiation. Your teacher will play a series of sounds ranging from completely dissimilar to similar. This will help you differentiate between different sounds.
- Repetition. Your teacher or partner will read phrases to you, and you will repeat them back. This will help you learn auditory comprehension.
How Do Audiobooks Help?
Hearing aids can help amplify noise, but that noise can be hard to understand for people who haven’t been using their auditory centers regularly. Auditory training can be a great supplement to hearing aids to help the wearer understand what they hear.
Audiobooks are one way you can practice auditory training. They best fit in with the speech differentiation and repetition exercises of auditory training. By listening to and working to understand audiobooks, you will be teaching your brain to understand conversations and other sounds. They can be extra helpful if you read along to the audiobook in a physical book. This will help cement the noise in your brain. Consider taking your audiobooks to Café Evoke to listen and follow along with your favorite iced coffee beverage.
For more audiology questions, make an appointment with one of our specialists at Hearing Care by Hough today.