So 65db on headphones, with HA, is the number? Then I’m 10% for words. I’ve just checked. 
That means that HAs gave me 55 points of increase, and here I whine why they didn’t get me more 
We humans, never happy
Nope, that one didn’t came up yet, thanks!
Hm, that’s link for some band? I’ve found this one: ABrehabPortal.de
It’s slow to load but I’ll try it, thanks. Also, found this on their main site, have no clue what is it:
https://thelisteningroom.com/en/
@Blacky
I’ve updated the link. “CI” was missing. Sorry for the confusion. But your link is correct either.
Not over the headphone but using the loud speaker when testing with HA in.
But I am a little bit confused by your numbers. 10% WRS is on your right ear without HA and 65% with HA? Your left ear does not have any issues so your left ear is doing most of the listening job all the time. In this case it is very difficult to increase WRS for your bad right ear. My guess is 65% is very well in your case (but I am not a professional).
Mmm, musical training helps with auditory processing. The study that always jumps to my mind was one that looked at speech-in-noise abilities in groups of older-adult musicians versus non-musicians, and the musicians did better even though they had hearing loss and the non-musician group had normal hearing. I’d have to start digging around for citations. There is a lot to be desired from the musical benefit research, but I would say it’s a bit stronger than the speech training research (which is easy, because evidence for a beneficial effect of speech training is weak). There are also more indirect music studies that I feel are suggestive–benefits of music for children with dyslexia, children with cochlear implants, stuff like that.
It also just makes more sense to me from a learning neuroscience perspective. Learning (brain change) is better when the stimulus is novel, multimodal, challenging, engaging, emotional, and pleasureable. It seems way easier to get there with music than with a speech training program.
Though, you could probably build your own speech training program with consideration for those elements out of books that you enjoy. Someone on here with good CI outcomes (Piper?) spent a lot of time listening to audiobooks. A motivated buddy could spend some time reading aloud in different environments, discussing the material, asking questions. There’s nothing magical about these speech training programs–it’s just about practicing the skills you want to be good at.
Not that you shouldn’t move ahead with auditory training, but WRS variability is high. It’s not uncommon to see pretty big differences from one test to another. For a significant change, you’d have to have lost about 10% in the left ear and more like 20% in the right. If it was done with live speech rather than recorded variability will be even higher.
The CI Sound Success link led me to a login page.
Here is a brochure page:
I love being with people, but with my single-sided deafness (SSD), I’ve found Zoom to be a great help, like you have!
In real life, especially in noise or around a table, when one person stops talking and someone else starts, I usually have no idea where they are, because sound location requires binaural hearing. By the time I figure out who’s talking and focus on them, I’ve often missed the first first few words.
In Zoom, I’ve set it in Gallery mode. When someone starts talking, it outlines their image in yellow and switches the audio to them right away. So, I instantly know who’s talking and can look at their lips.
I’ve also found the sound in Zoom to be excellent, and there’s almost no background noise to distract me, because each person’s mic focuses just on them. Add that to having it stream to my hearing aids, and it’s great.
So, much as I’ll love getting together with people again, I’ve loved using Zoom. I hope it will add closed captions soon, which Google Meet already has, even or free accounts.
I’ve bought lace uk, and there’s no settings to change anything (except password). However voices do mix on its own.
I tested few apps as well, but since they’re for new CI wearers, they’re focused more on sounds, phonemes, syllables, words, and I wanted to practice with sentences in noise. Those were mostly German ones. Some English ones aren’t available in Germany.
Audio fitness, after asking for so many information about me, ended being music sound based, but only 8 things (speed, pitch, length, so looks like really basoc and probably works with only simple tones, I didn’t try), plus it seems that you can’t buy premium (to get access to all features / exercises) unless you pair with offline provider. I couldn’t find the price, just find your provider link. Nearest one to me is 120 km away, not worth trying.
For music sounds I’m using the app version of that one recommended by @MDB
It’s definitely huge challenge to me. One thing it could be better is more precise explanation what I have to do exactly. Since I’m not musician I have no clue about terms. But, I’m not target population anyway. So I just take several turns trying to figure out how it works and what exactly I’m supposed to compare. Closing eyes helps.
Anyway, good challenge and definitely something new.
Back to lace. I did 2 sessions so far. They’re short. Compared to 45 min of continuous practice with the therapist, this is easy.
However, at the therapy I had only male therapist and he’d read several words 4-5, I had to repeat them. Lace gives you whole sentence, which I find more challenging. I don’t repeat out loud but to myself which I think isn’t that good but I try to be as precise as I can when I read the sentence and compare with what I have remembered that I’ve heard. So, at this moment I don’t want to conclude from context, but try to really hear it. If I don’t hear every word correctly, I say ‘no’ and then I repeat the sentence again. I’d like it to happen automatically since I sometimes forget to click it.
Tasks definitely vary in difficulties - I noticed background noise getting louder when I was good and then when I’m bad, it gets lower.
Fast speech is fast played track. Some people said somewhere that they didn’t like that because fast speakers don’t sound like that. However I do like that exercise because I sometimes increase YouTube speed for slow speaking people, and when they then say something faster, it’s really fast.
Competinf speaker is great. I couldn’t get any words out of it, so it will definitely be good challenge.
Overall I find the form really good. It’s short. However they do say at least 3 times a week.
I had 45 min usually once a week, so, I think it’s in the ballpark.
I trained only my right ear and streamed through the HAs directly. That being said, if I want to train both, I don’t see a way to repeat session or restart. I’ll see what happens at the end.
I might buy US version, for training both ears if I decide I don’t want to wait until the end to repeat this one with both.
I’m using it on the phone, through the browser, and it works fine.
It looks rudimentary, but since it looks like it definitely adapts, I find this good. My current quicksin with HA is 19. Horrible 
Yeah, you can’t just do quicksin.
I’d be happier if there’s few settings to adjust, and ability to redo some sessions. However since they adapt to you, it makes sense that it’s not repeatable, since you’d mess up with algorithm.
I was a bit surprised to realise that I understood man in quiet better than woman, while in noise was the opposite, complete inability to understand man while some success with woman. Kid was a disaster 
However when I lost hearing, my first thing was to keep repeating to all those nurses to stop yelling, that I’m not deaf, and hospital stay was really hard because of echoing corridors, and mostly women speakers. For me, they need to speek a bit softer, regular voice has too much distortion. Men on the other side can be louder. Funny
I plan to buy hoerobic, in German, maybe I use that with both ears, since there’s no enough help for me to understand the Germans. I usually have no clue what random people are saying to me. Like, when they unexpectedly turn to me and say something. They have to repeat, several times. Might be that my focus isn’t on them, but I think it’s definitely because my vocabulary is still small and uses basic words, which people probably stop using after elementary school.
However they say it could not work on phones, and I can’t recall if I saw demo anywhere.
Ok, I paid more attention to the length and I think it’s around half an hour long. Also, I’m on training 4, and I noticed yesterday and also today it gives je options to choose topics and indicates level of difficulty. Both time I chose easiest and it definitely was quite challenging for me. Memory exercises are hard, sentencea are long and by the end of the second I often forget the first one. So it should definitely work on my memory
Speech in noise is also challenging, not every time but it goes up and down. It varies between 3 speakers. Today I didn’t get the competing speakers nor fast speakers, but I definitely need a break after it.
So far, I definitely highly recommend it. Every several examples of gives some tips and tricks like ‘in theatre am for assistive listening devices’ and so on.
Hello Blacky,
I didn’t know that. So your goal is not mainly to learn distinguishing phonemes or syllables. In fact I guess your goal is to get word-boundaries within spoken sentences and get the meaning of each of them.
My recommendation for you is to listen to audio-books (a single person reads a complete book aloud) or even audio-plays (several persons speak only their role). For this you may install Smartphone Apps like LibriVox or vorleser.net. If you are willing to pay for content then amazon’s audible is the choice. In the latter you are able to increase or decrease speed with only few distorting sound and no change in pitch, if neccessary for you.
For audio-plays try starting with simple plays which are made for children. My favourite play is “The Three Investigators” (German: “Die drei ???”). Funny sidenote: This series was originally published in the US and translated to german. This has been discontinued in 1990 but relaunched in German (because german boys and now grown ups like me still love the series) and translated back to english 
Yeah, I’m not native German, I moved here 3+ years ago. Not knowing a word. Realised how bad I really hear, since now I need my ears, and can’t guess from the context, lip reading or whatever I’ve used non consciously to get by in quiet 1on1 situations.
I did listen audio books, I rented them through Libby. However, that was before this phonak marvel trial, and then I couldn’t stream to HA, so used headphones, mess up balance to get a bit more to the right, but I didn’t find it useful for brain training. I mean, my left ear took over.
I might give it a try again. However, reason for this training is that I don’t want to see text in advance but that I can check what I’ve heard. In Croatia, therapist was the one who did checking, but from what I’ve gathered, in Germany I can get something for the hearing aid, but not therapy. In Croatia was the other way around.
I had a feeling back then that it definitely helped sharpen my brain. But last time I went was a year before move, so long time ago.
I started digging if there’s a way to get more than that 600-700 eur, because marvels (M90) are officially 2700 per piece. I officially don’t need two, since I have one good ear. But, even with aid in bad one only, and low noise like white noise / fan behind me, and I can’t get more than 80%. Without aid it’s around 60%. And that noise is pathetic, compared to what I have around me in the house or in the city. I was at the pharmacy today, only HAs, lady didn’t have a mask but glass was between us, but also, open door towards the street behind me. Oh joy. Still, better than with previous one but still hard. Not to mention sun reflection that hit the glass in front of the lady’s mouth area
I mean, that’s the price I got at two places. At third, my chosen one, I got discount, but still, price is insanely high. If you have some tips to share how to convince KK to pay more, please do 
I found and I’m trying to understand DSB Beratungsrichtlinie Kostenübernahme Hörgeräte
It looks like I need to copy paste those boring letters at the end and I have a chance… Which doesn’t look like it really takes into the account specifics or rareness of my disability subtype… Maybe I misunderstood and it’s not that easy as to send example letters
Repeat out loud.
…
What is the benefit of repeating out loud?
Correctness of things heard I distinguish really good this way, since I’m focusing on what I hear and not what I think I hear.
But I’d like to hear more about it
Hearing yourself saying it aloud and comparing/adjusting that auditory input the the auditory input you get in the first place matters.
Um I wanted to know why, what’s the difference. If you know of course. Or could point me to some website which explains it?
The difference is that in one case your ears hear you say it and your auditory system is reactivated in a bottom-up fashion and in the other case you just say it in your head and your ears do not hear it again–your auditory system is still activated, but less strongly and in a top-down fashion. It’s just an optimization thing.
Hm interesting. Thanks!
Can you point me where I can find out more about top-down and bottom-up you mention?
Or if you could explain in more details.
Instructions didn’t point out that difference, so I thought it doesn’t matter until you started commenting now, so now I’m curious and want to find out more about it
You say optimisation, so repeating out loud would make progress faster, is that what you meant?
Yeah, theoretically. I certainly don’t have direct citations, and doubt I could find any given the general lack of research that auditory training does much in the first place, let alone a difference between reading aloud and silently in auditory training.
It just seems right. Pathways in the brain are built through activation and repetition (and novelty and salience). Bottom-up refers to a signal coming in from the outside and moving its way ‘up’ to the more complex, multi-modal and cognitive areas of the brain. Top-down is the reverse. We’re doing both all the time, really*, but it makes more sense to me to add in the peripheral activation as well when you are repeating given how little extra effort it entails. Basically, just doing the top-down stuff doesn’t give the whole pathway as much of a work-out.
I might be able to come up with sort of tangential citations. If you just think about completing a certain movement, the areas in your brain that normally light up when you are moving in that way do light up, but not as strongly. There’s a bunch of fMRI stuff on mental imagery or rehearsing versus actual execution of an action, but a lot of the stuff I’m thinking of is behind pay-walls (e.g. 2009 review Munzert, Lorey, Zentgraf). Also, you get a memory benefit for speaking things aloud rather than rehearsing them silently (production effect). Colin MacLeod has a 2018 article suggesting both the motor and auditory compenents are important. The musician benefit literature tends to find benefit only for individuals who have musical training, not individuals who just listen to music–the engagement, production, and matching with your instrument (mouth/ears) is important. I recall a couple of studies where people who just listen to music were used as one of the control groups, but I can’t dig them up at the moment.**
So, just call it educated guessing. 
*Those with hearing loss have to rely more on top-down processing because bottom-up processing is impaired. Here’s a review that ends in the unsatisfying way that an unfortunate majority of papers end, “we need more research”, but it’s open access: Impact of peripheral hearing loss on top-down auditory processing
**Nonetheless, here are a couple of articles looking at the benefit of musical training for hearing: https://asa.scitation.org/doi/10.1121/1.4942628, Musician Enhancement for Speech-In-Noise : Ear and Hearing, Musician Enhancement for Speech-In-Noise : Ear and Hearing
Whoa, this is more than I hoped for! You’re worth your weight in gold
Thank you so much!
Yeah I was digging to find out about auditory training and couldn’t find much, that’s why I asked if you maybe have some secret source
Now you have me bunch of terms I didn’t meet before so I have more things for digging, thanks
For others reading, I’ll post few examples / explanations I found
Top-down auditory processing is more, shall we say, thoughtful, using tools like context (dinner table, board meeting, classroom), expectations (past experience, person speaking), and nonverbal cues (facial expressions, body language). It considers those factors, along with the speech sounds, and does its best to interpret what was said.
The bottom-up system, on the other hand, makes a lightning-fast, best guess based on the raw sound data. Period. No consideration of context or those other complicating, time-consuming factors.
Article gives examples that definitely helped me understand the two.
And that what I’m doing is forcing bottom up for the training, I focus to hear sounds not to catch them up from the context and when I look at the sentence I think about which sounds did I really hear. And I find my approach really hard. It’s fun how after reading it and then playing while reading, I can clearly hear it all.
So I guess I put a lot of effort into it instead of just repeating it out loud. It all started with me trying the training in my bed while hubby was already sleeping and I didn’t want to wake him up or get up.
About production benefit here The Little-Known Truths About Reading Aloud - Scientific Learning
Now I need to go apologise to my mum, since I always hush her when she starts reading out loud.
You can really learn a lot out of this forum. Thanks @Neville once more
Sorry! When you do a thing for a long time, sometimes you forget what is common knowledge versus what is field-specific jargon. Also, on the internet you have no idea who everyone else is and what their experience is and so sometimes make some incorrect assumptions.
So, just in case, I’ll post this here. I apologize if it’s too basic for people. But if it’s new stuff. . . the brain really is the coolest thing around.
Um, my thanks was honest one, I love learning new things and putting smileys around
So feel free to drown me in things that you think could be connected to brain, hearing, training and whatnot