Clues that you may have a hearing loss

According to Peter Slobin, there are five major clues that you might have a hearing loss:

1. Someone who knows you well suggests that you get your hearing checked or that "you only hear when you want to hear."
2. Even though you can hear the words, you can't understand because they sound mumbled.
3. You need the television volume turned up high.
4. You can't hear if there is background noise, as in a noisy restaurant.
5. Women's and children's voices are especially hard to hear.

There's help available.
EARs train the brain:  www.clearworks4ears.com

Terrific article about auditory brain training

https://www.stlmag.com/health/a-new-train-your-ears-app-that-could-save-your-marriage/

Why go to an audiologist?

An article from "Audiology Today" (Nov/Dec, 2017, pg. 45) provides one answer:

"By minimizing that silent barrier of hearing loss and reconnecting patients with the outside world, hearing healthcare professionals may be able to lower a patient's odds of being diagnosed with major depressive symptoms and disorders."

If you have a hearing loss, there's help available. Ask your audiologist about clEAR Auditory Brain Training.

Ears train the brain: www.clearworks4ears.com

Why is auditory brain training part of my hearing healthcare plan?

* If you're like the average person with hearing loss, you have waited about 8 or 10 years after the onset of your hearing loss before you've started to use hearing aids.
* During these years, areas of your brain may have grown "rusty" from under-utilization.
* Auditory brain train exercises these areas.
* As a result of training, your hearing aid can help you better understand speech, especially in noisy situations.

Ears train the brain:  www.clearworks4ears.com

Communication tip of you have a hearing loss

Always make sure you have a good view of the talker's face. If someone has their hand over their mouth, don't be shy to say, "Please lower your hand, I can understand so much more if I can see your lips."

Help your communication partner to help you during conversations.

EARs train the brain:  www.clearworks4ears.com

Hearing loss and mental skills

How does hearing loss change my brain?

When you begin to lose your hearing, those pathways in your brain that used to be designated to understanding speech begin to reorganize and rewire themselves. As a result, you may have lost some of the mental tools that are necessary to process and comprehend speech.

If I begin to use hearing aids, will my brain automatically regain those mental skills that I lost because of hearing loss?

Possibly, but if this does happen, regaining them will take a long time and you may never become the listener that you were before you acquired hearing loss. However, help is available. clEAR Auditory Brain Training triggers and accelerates your brain’s rebuilding process. When someone has difficulty walking because of a bum hip and when they receive a hip replacement, they receive physical therapy. clEAR Auditory Brain Training is like receiving physical therapy for the brain. clEAR ear trains the brain so you can better comprehend speech.

EARs train the brain: www.clearworks4ears.com

What is clEAR Auditory Brain Training?

The centerpiece of clEAR is a set of computerized auditory brain training games that are fun to play. Your hearing healthcare professional will give you a customized lesson plan that will address your specific listening needs and communication challenges. During training, you will develop your abilities to distinguish between words that sound alike (e.g., car and tar), to recognize the most common words of the language (e.g., boy, girl, chair), and to develop those mental skills that are crucial to have, no matter what words and sentences you happen to be hearing. You will also be trained in those areas where you are having particular problems; for example, some clEAR users desire customized training that will help allow them to have more successful conversations with a particular person, such as a spouse or adult child.

If you are a woman with hearing loss......

• ·          You are twice as likely as a man to disclose your hearing loss (West & Konstantina, 2015).
• ·          You are better at offering suggestions to your conversational partners about how to enhance conversations (e.g., “My left ear has hearing loss, would you mind sitting on my right side?”) (W&K).
• ·         You are more comfortable with sustained eye contact, so you probably gain more benefit from the visual speech signal and from lipreading.
• ·          You are more likely to use hearing aids and to use them for longer periods at a time (Staehelin et al., 2011).

In other words, you're a rock star.
Ears train the brain:  www.clearworks4ears.com

An effective strategy for repairing communication breakdowns

When you experience a communication breakdown because of your hearing loss, try to avoid saying, "Huh?" because you're not being very helpful to your conversational partner in knowing what you did or didn't hear.  If you heard part of the message try saying:

* "I heard the part about [what you heard], what was the rest?"

This will tell your partner exactly what it is that needs to be clarified.

If you didn't hear any of the message, try saying:

"Can you say that a different way?"

By having the partner rephrase a message, you are more likely to recognize it than if the partner simply repeats the message verbatim, and that is what most likely will happen if you simply say "Huh?"

Master a few repair strategies.  They are like having tools in your toolbox when you need to repair a communication breakdown.

clEAR is pleased to announce that as of January 4, 2018, automated lesson plans for auditory brain training are available for the following people who have hearing loss: • The new hearing aid user • The person who wants hearing healthcare but isn’t yet ready for hearing aids • The person who complains of listening in noise • The person who can’t hear women’s or children’s voices very well • The person who wants to better understand the speech of a particular person, such as a spouse or an adult child • The person with auditory processing disorder • The new cochlear implant user Ear week, clEAR subscribers automatically receive a plan saying what clEAR games to play, why these games are beneficial, and how to play them. clEAR makes it easy to receive customized hearing healthcare that uniquely fills the particular needs of a person who has hearing loss. Ear train the brain: www.clearworks4ears.com

How to talk with clEAR Speech when conversing with someone who has hearing loss

Just like dancing a tango, it takes two people to conduct a conversation. When one of the conversational partners has a hearing loss, we often assume that this person must do all of the work in making a conversation successful---for example, the person with hearing loss might wear a hearing aid, try to read lips, ask for clarification when communication breakdowns occur, and so forth.

That a person with hearing loss should take responsibility for successful conversations is only partly true because the other person in the conversation also has a responsibility to talk as clearly as possible so that the person with hearing loss can best understand what is being said.

Research has shown that when conversational partners talk with clear speech, the person with hearing loss understands a lot more of what is being said then if they are talking conversationally.  So what is clear speech?

Here's an example of clear versus conversational speech:

• Clear speech:  "Did you eat yet?"
• Conversational speech:  "D'jeet yet?"

Here are examples of people who talk with clear speech:

• Queen Elizabeth
• A newscaster
• An elementary school teacher

The researchers at clEAR Auditory Brain Training have developed a short video to teach people how to speak with clear speech.  You can watch it by going to this YouTube address or by visiting the clEAR website.

Youtube address:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Djrc_YsJqkk

clEAR website video address:  https://www.clearworks4ears.com/site/page?page=game_videos

If you are an audiologist, please feel free to share this video with the loved ones of your patients.  If you are a person with hearing loss, whether or not you use a hearing aid, feel free to ask your loved one to watch this video.  When a partner speaks clearly, conversations become more successful and everyone wins.

Ear train the brain:  www.clearworks4ears.com