Training with Your Loved One’s Voice Could Help Hearing Loss

If you have hearing loss, you know conversations are difficult to navigate. You may miss subtle conversational cues, answer inappropriately, or appear to not be paying attention. While you might miss the sounds of chirping birds or not hear the telephone ring, not understanding what your loved one is saying is the most challenging obstacle presented by hearing loss. There’s now a solution that can help. New software has been developed to improve speech recognition and train your ears and brain to make following conversations easier.

There are well over 37 million Americans with hearing loss, and this number continues to skyrocket as the baby boomer generation gets older. Since half of those over the age of 70 struggle with hearing loss, this is a crucial issue to address, and the need for effective treatment rises.

For those with hearing loss, training to distinguish speech sounds can make all the difference in being able to follow conversations or be left confused and frustrated. Dr. Nancy Tye-Murray, a researcher at Washington University School of Medicine, has been developing exciting new software to let patients practice listening to voices and sharpen their listening skills.

The software Tye-Murray and the program’s co-founder Dr. Brent Spehar developed is called customized learning: Exercises for Aural Rehabilitation, or clEAR. This program was designed to improve speech recognition and help those with hearing loss navigate their everyday lives by giving them the skills to communicate easily and effectively. The computer software can be used by both adults and children to practice listening skills, and help train the ear to understand speech and conversation.

The clEAR computer software is designed as a game interface, allowing users to play computer games that encourage them to keep practicing to improve their scores and develop their listening skills. Play is the best ways to learn, and clEAR is fun and entertaining as well as beneficial. The games are built around recognizing common words and sounds, with right answers generating higher scores. The program also trains cognitive skills such as auditory attention, working memory, and auditory processing speed.

Tye-Murray and her colleagues designed a program to help those with hearing loss practice their communication skills. She decided the best way to do that was practice with a familiar voice. Her software uses the voices of the most important people in life, such as a family member or spouse. It brings the family closer, as the loved one records audio clips, and the person with hearing loss can use these clips to practice recognizing speech.

While the software does have traditional, generic voices, the unique feature of this software is the personal touch. “We have a recording and editing system that lets patients train with the voices of people they most want to hear — often spouses, children or grandchildren,” says Tye-Murray said. The loved one records samples, the program edits these audio clips, and the game is ready to go using the familiar voice.

Research conducted at Washington University has found significant benefits from doing auditory training exercises using the voices you most want to hear, whether it’s a spouse or another family member. Those practicing with a familiar voice showed far greater improvement than those practicing with generic voices.

Tye-Murray wanted to find a way to motivate those with hearing loss to work hard and improve their listening skills, regardless of whether or not they wear hearing devices. “The inability to hear and participate in everyday conversations,” she says, “is isolating and can destroy relationships with family, friends and co-workers.” Hearing loss contributes to a host related problems such as dementia, anxiety, or depression. These other health concerns often overshadow hearing health, and people may fail to recognize or treat their hearing loss. However, Tye-Murray understands that treating hearing loss will lead to positive health outcomes in many related areas of life.

If you are tired of struggling to hear, get your hearing tested. At My Hearing Centers, we’ll work with you to find the perfect hearing aid, and give you more tips on how to work on your listening skills. Don’t let hearing loss hold you back!