August 25 Meeting Summary – Aural Rehabilitation

Chapter, Events, HLAA, Meetings

Liz discussing the Hearing Loss Californian special edition.

This is a summary of our August 25 chapter meeting, covering the guest presentation and chapter business. Click here to view meeting transcript..

Guest Presentation

Aural Rehabilitation was the topic of the day, presented by Helen Tinsman, a speech therapist who works for Advanced Bionics (AB). She can be reached by email at helen.tinsman@advancedbionics.com

The emphasis of her presentation was low- and high-tech methods that can be used to “train your brain” to improve aural comprehension. She calls this “physical therapy for your ears.” The suggestions included:

  • Watch TV with closed captions
  • Listen to unabridged audio books and read the print copy
  • Read printed material out loud to yourself
  • Practice reading out loud with a partner
  • https://thelisteningroom.comis a free space to practice speech comprehension
  • Lynn Wood’s blog shows how to use board games to enhance listening skills,https://cid.edu/2017/11/29/listening-language-learning-can-fun-games/
  • Additional resources are listed at https://advancedbionics.com/You don’t have to be an AB recipient to use the site. AB can be contacted to discuss which resources best meet your needs.
  • Get together with others in small groups to practice aural rehab. Perhaps a local university with a speech/language program would offer a program as community service for students.
  • CLIX, an app for IOS devices, is a free program from AB that lets you practice listening for word discrimination in both quiet and noise.
  • Listen to favorite music via online sites where lyrics can also be downloaded
  • The Facebook group, Cochlear Implant Daily Rehab, offers two posts per day to practice listening,https://www.facebook.com/groups/421783617910242/
  • TED talks offer thousands of videos that are mostly captioned,https://www.ted.com; also on YouTube and as IOS or Andriod apps

Sometimes you may reach a plateau point on your hearing journey. Assistive devices could take you further. These include accessories that come with your hearing aids or processors; the Phonak Compilot, Roger Pen or Roger Select. Purchase these from your audiologist. These may also be available on eBay.

It’s rare that an audiologist will specialize in aural rehabilitation. There may be resources at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association website, https://www.asha.org

(Note: mention of goods and services here is for reference purposes only; it does not signify endorsement of any products)

Chapter Business

  • James and Noreen were newcomers to our meeting – though not to HLAA.
  • Jennifer received the WOW award for finding guest speakers and for spearheading the ‘loop the library’ project.
  • Treasurer’s Report from Gary – An account has been established for our scholarship fund; individual donations welcome…. Information about signing up for Amazon Smile and Ralph’s Rewards programs to benefit HLAA-LA to follow.