Advance Hearing

The most effective remedy for hearing loss is personal education. You need to learn all you can about your particular loss. To begin, you will need to know:

• What is the type of hearing loss I have?
• What is the degree of loss in my left and right ears?
• How has my ability to process sound been affected?
• How do hearing aids bridge the gap?
• What can I do to improve my hearing?

How has my ability to process sound been affected? If you have lost your hearing gradually over time, then your brain has been slowly starved from stimulation in the sound frequencies you no longer hear at normal volume.

So, when you first begin using hearing aids, your brain will be startled to receive signals it has been missing. Until it becomes used to these sounds, you may think to yourself . . .

• “Everyone’s voice sound odd to me.”
• “My own voice sounds funny.”
• “The hearing aids are noisy. Unless I go into a quiet room they pick up all sorts of distracting sounds.”
• “Will this condition improve with time?”

Because you haven’t heard normal sounds and noises for a long time, wearing hearing aids will take time to get used to. At first, the sounds amplified by your hearing aids may sound tinny, metallic, artificial and unnatural. But this is because you are hearing the high frequency speech sounds (like: s, sh, f, k, th, etc), which you have been missing, or have heard differently for years. This unnatural sound quality will actually improve your speech comprehension – but only if you stick with your new hearing aids until your brain has a chance to adjust. And with practise and time, your brain will adjust.

Understanding occurs in your brain, not in your ears. Getting your brain re-used to true sounds is like priming a pump; you’ve got to stay with it long enough for the water to flow. Once it is flowing – and it will flow – the hardest part is over.

From early childhood the sounds of words and noises are conveyed to the brain to gather visual images of things. This information is stored in memory compartments which are your “sound vocabulary”.

• When you lose part of your hearing, the corresponding part of your brain – which now has no input from your ear – volunteers that brain-part for another assignment.
• After a time of not hearing, the brain will need a period of time to become familiarised with the high frequency sounds of speech and environmental sounds. This is the hardest time for a person who begins using hearing aids.

Sounds will again become a part of your subconscious once your brain hears them on a daily basis through hearing aids.

For example:

• The true pitch of your telephone ring.
• The sound of your clothes rustling as you walk.
• The ‘hum’ of your refrigerator motor.
• The crackling and rustling of the pages of the newspaper.
• The whirr of your computer.

Your ability to hear, then associate these sounds with their meaning, will increase with practise.