What is aural rehabilitation

Learning to listen again. If you do have new hearing aids or a cochlear implant, your world will be full of sounds you forgot existed. You will be moving from what has become a quiet world back to the normally noisy world in which we all live. Through training and practice, you will acquire new listening habits. Using visual clues. Everyone uses their eyes to get clues about what people are saying, their mood, their interest in the topic of conversation, and so on.

You probably are using your eyes even more to make up for what you cannot hear. Speechreading training provides formal instruction in how speech sounds are made, which sounds look alike on the lips.

Learning which words have the same mouth movement but very different meaning can be incredibly useful in increasing understanding of conversations. You can also gain a great deal of helpful information from following other visual clues like facial expression, gestures, body movement, and body language. Audiologic rehabilitation provides the person with a hearing loss and his or her family with many listening strategies that can improve communication.

Some of these are as follows:. Handling conversation. By learning to take charge of your communication assertively not aggressively! There are may ways to be assertive. You can ask people to get your attention before speaking to you, suggest that they face you, and ask them not to shout.

Another way to be assertive is to learn and use strategies for handling communication breakdowns. Arrangement of your home. Perhaps carpeting can be strategically placed to absorb noise.

Maybe there are alerting devices that can help you identify when the doorbell rings. Dealing with background noise outside the home. In a noisy restaurant, for example, request a table further away from the kitchen and clattering dishes. Seat yourself directly in front of your dining companion so that you can maximize your understanding of conversation. Support groups. You are not the only one with a hearing loss. How do they handle traveling, meetings, appointments, going to the hospital, telephone conversations, hearing in theaters, difficult family members or work associates?

Have they used assistive listening devices? What has worked? Support groups are excellent forums for problem solving and mutual support. Most people with hearing loss can achieve greatly improved hearing through appropriately fit hearing aids.

Your audiologist will recommend certain styles and types of hearing aids based on your hearing, cosmetic preferences, and your lifestyle and communication needs. Instead, try to make a specific clarification request. If the speaker mumbles, ask them to please speak more clearly. If the talker speaks in a quiet voice, politely ask him or her to speak louder. Many talkers cover their mouths when they are talking.

When this happens, tell them you can understand them better if they would not cover their mouths. Your difficulty hearing and likely your hearing aids are not visible to the people you converse with. They may forget to speak in a manner helpful to you. One way to overcome this is to explain that you are really interested in hearing what they have to say and that you would like to use a cue, like tapping your ear or your mouth, to remind them of the best ways to communicate with you.

You might choose quieter restaurants, or ask your place of worship to carpet the social hall to reduce reverberation, you might move to a quieter location to have a conversation. Anticipate difficult listening situations and think about your communication strategy.

Your audiologist can help you with these strategies. Rather than relying solely on hearing aids or cochlear implants to solve hearing problems, however, the aural rehab approach uses a Needs Assessment to help the person with hearing loss pinpoint specific situations that are highly valued and at risk for being compromised by difficulties with hearing, even with excellent amplification.

Importantly, aural rehabilitation invites the active participation of the person with hearing loss in setting goals, identifying satisfactory outcomes and choosing solutions. Once the Needs Assessment is complete, aural rehab helps the person with hearing loss to organize and actively take charge of communication by creating a hearing loss management plan. The person with hearing loss can begin to tackle the obstacles presented in important communication events and try out and evaluate possible solutions.

HLAA Chapters to build confidence, skill sets, and social support.