Books-on-tape was what we used to call them, once upon a time. Back then, obviously, we didn’t even have CDs let alone streaming services. These days, people call them audiobooks (which, we won’t lie, is a far better name).
An audiobook allows you to read a book by, well, listening to it. It’s sort of like when you were a kid and a parent or teacher read to you. You can connect with new concepts, get swept up in a story, or learn something new. Listening to audiobooks when you’re passing time will be a mind enriching experience.
As it turns out, they’re also a great way to achieve some auditory training.
What’s auditory training?
So you’re most likely pretty interested about what exactly auditory training is. It sounds complex and a lot like school.
As a skilled form of listening, auditory training is created to give you a better ability to perceive, process, and understand sounds (medically known as “auditory information”). One of the primary uses of auditory training is to help individuals learn to hear with their new hearing aids.
Because untreated hearing loss can cause your hearing to get used to a quieter environment and your brain can get out of practice. So when you get a new pair of hearing aids, your brain abruptly has to cope with an influx of additional information. Practically, this often means that your brain can’t process those sounds as well as it generally does (at least, not initially). Auditory training can be a useful tool to help deal with this. (As a side note, auditory training is also useful for those who have language learning difficulties or auditory processing disorders).
Another perspective: It’s not really that audiobooks can sharpen your hearing, it’s that they can help you better distinguish what you hear.
What happens when I listen to audiobooks?
Auditory training was designed to help your brain get accustomed to making sense out of sounds again. If you think about it, humans have a really complex relationship with noise. Every sound you hear has some significance. Your brain has to do a lot of work. So if you’re breaking in a new pair of hearing aids, listening to audiobooks can help your brain become accustomed to hearing and understanding again.
Audiobooks can assist with your auditory training in a number of different ways, including the following:
- Perception of speech: When you listen to an audiobook, you gain real-time practice comprehending someone else’s speech. During typical conversations, however, you will have much less control than you will with an audiobook. You can rewind if you don’t understand something and listen to something over and over again. It’s a great way to practice understanding words!
- Listening comprehension: Perceiving speech is one thing, comprehending it is another thing entirely. When you follow the story that the narrator is reading, you will get practice differentiating speech. Your brain needs practice connecting words to concepts, and helping those concepts remain rooted in your mind. In your day-to-day life, this will help you understand what people are saying to you.
- Improvements of focus: You’ll be able to pay attention longer, with some help from your audiobook pals. After all, if you’re getting accustomed to a new pair of hearing aids, it may have been a while since you last engaged in and listened to an entire conversation. You may require some practice tuning in and staying focused, and audiobooks can help you with that.
- Improvements in pronunciation: In some cases, it’s not just the hearing part that can need a little practice. Hearing loss can often bring on social isolation which can cause communication skills to atrophy. Audiobooks can make communication a lot easier by helping you get a grip on pronunciation.
- A bigger vocabulary: Most individuals would love to broaden their vocabulary. The more words you’re exposed to, the bigger your vocabulary will become. Let your impressive new words impress all of your friends. Perhaps that guy standing outside the bar looks innocuous, or your food at that restaurant is sumptuous. With audiobooks, you’ll have just the right words queued up for any situation.
Audiobooks as auditory aids
Reading along with a physical copy of your audiobook is highly recommended. This will help make those linguistic connections stronger in your brain, and your brain may adapt more quickly to the new auditory signals. It’s definitely a good way to enhance your auditory training experience. Because hearing aids are enhanced by audiobooks.
Audiobooks are also nice because they’re pretty easy to get right now. You can subscribe to them on an app called Audible. You can instantly purchase them from Amazon or other online vendors. And you can hear them at any time on your phone.
Plus, if you can’t find an audiobook you really like, you could always listen to a podcast to get the same experience (and there are podcasts on pretty much every topic). You can improve your hearing and enrich your mind at the same time!
Can I utilize my hearing aids to listen to audiobooks?
Many contemporary hearing aids are Bluetooth equipped. So all of your Bluetooth-enabled devices, including your phone, your television, and your speakers, can be paired with your hearing aids. With this, when you listen to an audiobook, you won’t have uncomfortable headphones over your hearing aids. You can utilize your hearing aids for this instead.
You’ll now get superior sound quality and greater convenience.
Consult us about audiobooks
So come in and talk to us if you’re worried about having difficulty getting accustomed to your hearing aids or if you think you might be experiencing hearing loss.