Rehabilitation: Listening exercises to support your hearing goals

During your rehabilitation sessions your clinician will work with you to identify your listening goals and develop an auditory training programme to help you reach them.

The programme may include listening practice (language and word discrimination training), communication strategies, learning how to modify your listening environment for better hearing access, and strategies to more effectively communicate with friends, family and in the community.

Your rehabilitationist can also give you tools to advocate for your hearing and communication needs, and let you know what assistive technology is available to support your listening in challenging environments.

You will also receive a tailored programme of listening exercises (auditory training) for you to complete at home to develop your listening skills.

Here are some exercises to support your listening goals:

Do 30 minutes of ACTIVE listening practice every day

This means really listening to speech (without lipreading but add it if you need a clue) or music and working out what has been said.

The key here is active listening, where you are paying attention to the words or music. Ideally you are also getting feedback about how much you understood, and listening again to confirm what you heard.

Don't expect to get 100% correct

You want to challenge yourself so if you are getting it all right it is too easy. Try and work at a level where 70-80% of it is easy and you get it right the first time. The other 20-30% you will need to have repeated or lip read to get it right.

Find listening training that works for you

We use a range of partner supported rehabilitation techniques and online resources and apps.

Traditional listening involves listening to a helper read out sentences or words and receiving feedback.

Listening to music is preferred by many adults by using YouTube, iTunes or Spotify applications (apps) on their mobile phones.

The internet also provides opportunities for self-listening. One tried and tested website we recommend is ESL News.

Mobile phone applications (apps) provide the additional benefit of helping adults return to phone use as well as supporting specific word listening exercises. Some apps our clients enjoy using are Hearing Success, Word Success, HEAROES, Hearing Training and Bring Back The Beat.

Word listening tasks will develop your ability to discriminate between small difference in speech sounds so you don't fall into the habit of filling the gaps in sentences, which many adults quickly develop.

Books such as Wired for Sound by Beverley Biderman (1998) might also help you understand how much you can achieve.

As one client says, it "made me feel very good... and reminded me repeatedly and irrefutably of my successes, large and small.”

We have a few copies of the book for loan. If you would like to borrow a copy please let us know.

Welcome boost for Cochlear Implant Repair Fund

Our fund helping many adult cochlear implant users cover the costs of unfunded repairs has received a generous boost thanks to our long-standing supporter, the Quota South Pacific Area Scholarship.

Quota’s motto is ‘We Share’ and is known worldwide for their service to disadvantaged women and children, and those who are deaf or hard of hearing.

The Hearing House CEO Dr Claire Green says The Hearing House is deeply grateful to be the recipient of such a generous donation from the Quota South Pacific Area Scholarship.

“This fund will help so many people and with the way the world is heading – this kind of support is even more important and significant.”

Claire says the Cochlear Implant Repair Fund, which was established last year, depends on regular and ongoing donations to be successful long term.

“Receiving $130,000 (AU$120,000) at this point in its existence means we can continue to ease the financial burden faced by many adult cochlear implant users when their equipment fails over the coming years.”

QSPA Scholarship Trustee Karen Morrison says the donation is the result of the organisation’s “devastating” decision to dissolve their scholarships.

They have provided New Zealand Educational Scholarships and study grants for first year school leavers, and second year Master of Audiology students at Auckland University since 1992.

“Redirecting these funds to The Hearing House will create a lasting legacy to those whose financial difficulties with their cochlear implants have been a burden and knowing this gives all of our Quota members great joy.

“We have great faith in The Hearing House team's undertaking to strengthen this program,” says Karen.

Learn more about our Cochlear Implant Repair Fund, and how to donate here.

Quota Papakura members are regular supporters of our annual Loud Shirt Day fundraiser. Here they are in 2018 combining Loud Shirt Day with their monthly dinner meeting - what a colourful and fun bunch they are!

Expanding our services to support more tamariki with hearing loss

More than 100 young learners from Ko Taku Reo are now receiving dedicated care from our paediatric audiologists - and they don’t even need to leave their school grounds.

Ko Taku Reo is New Zealand's provider of education services for Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children. The partnership is a new approach to audiological care, which enables our paediatric audiologists to visit Ko Taku Reo tamariki in their Kelston and Ormiston provisions during the school day.

“By coming to the schools we’re hoping to build a more holistic relationship with these tamariki, while taking the burden of hearing care off of the parents,” says The Hearing House Clinical Director Holly Teagle.

The service expansion is part of The Hearing House’s contract with the Ministry of Education to support school-aged children with different degrees of hearing loss. Last year, this saw school-aged cochlear implant recipients return to our care.

The Hearing House CEO Dr Claire Green says it’s wonderful to be supporting tamarki with different degrees of hearing loss, not only those who use cochlear implants.

“People are at the heart of what we do. We’ve hired more team members so we can deliver a service that understands and meets the needs of our newest kiritaki and their whānau.”

Holly says The Hearing House is driven to be a centre of excellence and recognised as a leader for clinical best practice, innovation, research and training.

“This partnership not only allows us to provide evidence-based best practices that support tamariki with hearing loss to achieve their full potential, but provides Auckland University audiology graduates the opportunity to look at innovative clinical best practice in action too.”