Rehab For Adults: New Resources Available!

Due to the popularity of our Rehab for Adults series, which includes:

• what to expect from a cochlear implant,
• printable handouts for active auditory training with your cochlear implant, practice listening for specific sounds, speech tracking; and
• tips for how to use communication strategies and improve your listening environment,

we have made further resources available for you to print and use at home to help you to practice listening with your hearing implant.

We know active, structured listening practice leads to faster progress. Here are another two printable handouts with structured listening activities to help.

Download the activity sheet now! 

Activity sheet 1

Activity sheet 2

Extracto 1

Extracto 2

Tips For Practicing

• If you are using a hearing aid in your other ear, remove it so you just listen with your audio processor.
• Don’t use lip reading to begin with, but add it if you need a clue.
• Start with EASIER variations of activities first and move through activities one by one.
• Ask your communication partner (family member or friend who is helping you with your listening practice) to use listening first when using the materials provided as this training aims to build your listening skills with your CI:
  • LISTEN to the words (your communication partner points to each word/picture and says them)
  • SAY (you say the word back to your communication partner)
  • LISTEN & CHOOSE (your communication partner says one of the listed words again, you listen and choose which picture/word/sentence you heard)
• If the activities are difficult, add visual clues (lip reading, written text, gestures) where needed after you have had a chance to ‘listen first’.
• Remember, listening ‘mileage’ is important. Your brain needs time and practice to make sense of the information it is receiving from the cochlear implant.
• Listening practice with your CI can be tiring! Short bursts of practice, such as two 15-minute blocks per day is better than one 30-minute session.

How To Make Activities Easier Or More Difficult

As we mentioned in our previous post, there are a number of factors that will affect your outcomes with a cochlear implant and progress will vary from person to person. Don’t worry if you find these activities difficult. It just means you need more practice and time using your CI.

Here are five ways to make your listening activities easier or more difficult:

1. Number of options: In the sentence building activity there are four sentences in the first set. Reduce or increase the number of sentences to make this easier or more difficult. You can use this rule in all activities.
2. Clues: Add visual cues such as the written words, and then lip reading to make a task easier. Remove written text to make tasks more challenging.
3. Sentence length: Longer sentences will be more difficult to understand than short phrases.
4. Difference between words/sentences: Words and sentences that sound very similar for example, ‘edge’ vs ‘age’ are more difficult than words and sentences that have larger contrasts in sound and length such as ‘pear’ vs ‘banana’.
5. Content: Unfamiliar words are sentences are more difficult to understand than everyday familiar words and sentences.

What Activities Can You Use?

We have shared just a couple of activities with you to get you started.

You can also make your own lists for ‘Sentence Building’ and ‘Topic Centered Sentences’. Use words, sentences and topics that are important to you such as family names, work, or hobbies.