How does auditory training work? Joined up thinking and listening

Ferguson, Melanie A. and Henshaw, Helen (2015) How does auditory training work? Joined up thinking and listening. Seminars in Hearing, 36 (04). pp. 237-249. ISSN 1098-8955

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

Auditory training aims to compensate for degradation in the auditory signal and is offered as an intervention to help alleviate the most common complaint in people with hearing loss, understanding speech in a background noise. Yet there remain many unanswered questions. This article reviews some of the key pieces of evidence that assess the evidence for whether, and how, auditory training benefits adults with hearing loss. The evidence supports that improvements occur on the trained task; however, transfer of that learning to generalized real-world benefit is much less robust. For more than a decade, there has been an increasing awareness of the role that cognition plays in listening. But more recently in the auditory training literature, there has been an increased focus on assessing how cognitive performance relevant for listening may improve with training. We argue that this is specifically the case for measures that index executive processes, such as monitoring, attention switching, and updating of working memory, all of which are required for successful listening and communication in challenging or adverse listening conditions. We propose combined auditory-cognitive training approaches, where training interventions develop cognition embedded within auditory tasks, which are most likely to offer generalized benefits to the real-world listening abilities of people with hearing loss.

Item Type: Article
RIS ID: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/763204
Keywords: Auditory training - hearing loss - working memory - attention - communication - hearing aids - executive function - speech perception
Schools/Departments: University of Nottingham, UK > Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > School of Medicine
Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0035-1568985
Depositing User: Eprints, Support
Date Deposited: 24 Jan 2017 11:50
Last Modified: 04 May 2020 17:18
URI: https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/40028

Actions (Archive Staff Only)

Edit View Edit View