Rehab at Home for Adults: Understanding Phone Conversations

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Tips for Understanding Phone Conversations

Here are some additional tips to help you achieve the goal of understanding conversation on the phone.

To Get Started

• Phone a family member or friend. Practice listening to the ringtone and then the contrast of the voice. Answer with ‘Hello’.
• Let them know that you’re practicing listening on the phone. Explain you want to start with listening to greetings and responses. One by one, say four short sentences and ask your helper to repeat them after you. (e.g. “How are you?” “I’m fine, thank you”. “And how about you?” “See you soon.”) Finish the call by saying thank you and goodbye.

As You Progress

• Set up a phone call with a family member or a friend. Let them know that you’re practicing listening on the phone.
• Share a list of six words that sound very different. Ask your helper to slowly read out all the words and then pick one and say it again. Repeat the single word.
• Ask your helper to respond with ‘Great’ if you repeated the correct word and ‘Listen again to the word’ if you didn’t get it.

Once You’re Almost There

• Choose a topic and share a list of sentences about that topic with your phone helper (e.g. if your topic is weather, “It’s a hot day today”, “You need an umbrella”, “What is the temperature?”).
• Call your helper and ask if they have time for a chat to help you practice your listening over the phone. Ask them to say one of the sentences. Repeat the sentence. Use communication strategies if you get stuck.

Get more useful tips on using the telephone in this article.

Download our brochure Telephone Training Tips.