Auditory training (LACE or similar)

Question and Answer
#16

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 :frowning:
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 :joy:
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 :joy:

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.

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#17

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 :joy:
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.

#18

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 :smiley:

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#19

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. :joy:

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 :joy:

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 :slight_smile:

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 :joy:

#20

Repeat out loud.

…

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#21

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 :slight_smile:

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#22

Hearing yourself saying it aloud and comparing/adjusting that auditory input the the auditory input you get in the first place matters.

#23

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?

#24

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.

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#25

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 :smiley:

You say optimisation, so repeating out loud would make progress faster, is that what you meant?

#26

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. :smile:

*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

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#27

Whoa, this is more than I hoped for! You’re worth your weight in gold :smiley:

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 :smiley:

Now you have me bunch of terms I didn’t meet before so I have more things for digging, thanks :smiley:

#28

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.

From here https://hearinghealthmatters.org/betterhearingconsumer/2018/top-down-vs-bottom-up-the-battle-to-understand-speech-kathi-mestayer

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. :joy:
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. :joy:

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

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#29

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.

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#30

Um, my thanks was honest one, I love learning new things :smiley: and putting smileys around :smiley:
So feel free to drown me in things that you think could be connected to brain, hearing, training and whatnot :smiley:

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#31

@Neville

I just realised that I can’t remember the sentence if I try to speak it out loud. I mean, I lose last part from my brain when it’s its turn to be said out loud. Tested several times.

I hold it long enough to write it down even, but for repeating this sentences are too long for me :joy:

They’re like 10+ words long, I can safely hold like 4-6.

In one of your links, or connected things to them, I’ve seen that people get better retention when they speak out loud, but worse when someone else speaks it out loud.
Seems like I process even my voice as a disturbance and not getting help out of it :rofl:

And I’m literally not sure what I did hear at the end of the sentence when it asks me if I heard everything correctly if I try to repeat it out loud after first play. So I’ll stick to silence, since my goal is to train the hearing and not ‘stop disturbing yourself by speaking out loud’.

My thoughts are in better order when there’s no one saying the same, just out loud. Even if it’s me. And from my mum issue, and from school, it kills my concentration if someone reads out loud thing I need to read and understand. In school I’d always plug my ears with fingers :joy:

I’m laughing and sharing this because I wasn’t aware of that until I tested it now and then it hit me, school memory.

I’ll stick to my silent practice, since it works best for me. I think it could be connected to the fact that I’m not neurotypical, in case you wonder why, to share all background information that I think could be relevant.

But interesting nevertheless.

#32

Interesting.

To clarify, I wasn’t suggesting shadowing the sentence. That is, don’t repeat it as it comes. Hold it silently, and then repeat if after.

Being unable to do that seems like an interesting auditory memory issue (or, perhaps more likely, a issue in encoding auditory information into short term memory) that would be just as worthwhile to improve as speech in noise processing, if possible. It may be useful to read the sentence aloud after writing it down, if that is something that you can do.

For a contrasting experience: Sometimes my friend says something and I’m not really listening, but then when they complain I can repeat back to them what they said and so claim that I was listening all along. The reality is that I wasn’t listening and I only actually process the sentence when I repeat it back, but it was sitting there in my head for me to repeat back.

But it may not be something that can be significantly improved with training. But just knowing that one has difficulty with a specific skill like that allows you to employ strategies to work around it, which is good.

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#33

Yup, did exactly that what you meant. No go.

But on level 2 which I tried yesterday sentences were really long. Like, long as the previous one or two.

IRL training would do 4-5 words (not counting a, the, and, or and the similar). With that I don’t have a problem.

It might be also that I remember better if I read vs if I hear it. Fun thing is that once I read it/looking at it, I’ll hear every phoneme if clearly spoken. So that’s why it wouldn’t work on me the common advice ‘read and listen the book at the same time’.

But before I lost my hearing several years ago, when I think about it, I always understood better what is written than what I’ve heard. Which is nothing special, ordinary learning pyramid consequence.
No matter if I focus on repeating or not, it’s just how it was/is.
Also, gimme someone speaking nearby, and it will disturb my thoughts. And also, increase stress. Introvert as well.
I need quiet working environment. Since age 5 :smiley:

But also, to me, listening well isn’t the same as remembering it. I’m not interested in topics of the exercise so I don’t feel like wasting energy to try to remember it.
Maybe it could be good training for that, but at the moment I’m definitely ok with my memory abilities, since I live with them so long.
And I extensively use reminders and notes to not bother myself with that trivia. I’d rather spend my concentration on eg learning how to program marvels than onto remembering random sentences just for the sake of that task.

So I believe it’s all interrelated, both my abilities (intelligences included), my attitude and the reason why I do something. We’re definitely not all the same. And it definitely comes to what you also said: ‘know yourself to help yourself’ :slight_smile:

And having one good ear and one really bad one, I’d expect it definitely introduces some deflection from the expected.

For this LACE training, you can only say if you heard it all or not and it adapts exercises on the fly by thay feedback. And I think it would be wrong ti say I didn’t hear it just because I forgot part of it. I mean, definitely now when I’m at the middle of the process, I think it would skew algorithm.
That’s one reason I’m opposed to changes, because I want to test it under same conditions.

But I’ll definitely give it more thought. Altough I think it’s all about the topic, if it’s not my cup of tea, I use those two ears, one in, another out :joy:
And since I want to hear those things that I need/want/am interested in, I don’t think my memory will be a problem.

Anyhow, you’ve thought me a lot here, thanks!

#34

The only difference between auditory training and LACE is that while auditory training managed and aided by physician at the same time LACE is controlled by physical with the help of computerized technique to help people in complete listening.

#35

There are so many new tools (vs. LACE); some are from OEMs, like Cochlear. One independent one that I have tried recently is Auribus, iOS only, and it has a lot of free content. ‎Auribus on the App Store

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