Hearing aids or auditory training

Hearing Loss
#1

After struggling to understand what people are saying and having to ask people to repeat themselves, I went to an audiologist recently and got told I have borderline normal/mild hearing loss.

The audiologist said that I could try auditory training or trial hearing aids to see if they improve my ability to understand. She also said that because I have a relatively flat loss, this could be impacting my ability to understand more than a sloped loss.

I know that choosing the best strategy to improve hearing is personal but I’d like to hear from other people as I don’t know anyone with hearing loss.

Has anyone trialled auditory training with success?
Did wearing hearing aides with a mild loss improve your ability to understand speech in noise?

#2

What are costs to you of the different options (hearing aids vs training)? I’m dubious of how much hearing aids would help, but everybody’s different. I don’t think there’s a lot of evidence for different kinds of auditory training although I have heard that music training can be helpful.

1 Like
#3

Thanks for your reply,

The audiologist quoted roughly $4-5k for hearing aids depending on model choice. That includes appointments for fittings and follow ups.

I am not sure on the auditory training. She gave me a list of places that can do it online as I live in a remote area. None of those places have prices listed but I’m going they would be cheaper up front but depends on how long I would require their services as to how much it would be.

Price point isn’t too much of an issue to me in the long run. I didn’t say, but I am a teacher and finding it troublesome to understand my students at times, especially in background noise.

#4

The info about being a teacher adds something to the picture. There are remote microphones that can be used with certain hearing aids that can help notably with understanding speech in noise. Phonak’s “Roger” microphones have a very good reputation. Such systems aren’t cheap, but your employer may be able to help out. If you work in a large public school system they may already be supplying similar systems for some hearing impaired students.

#5

I have had quote speech therapy, but it was others talking to me and me repeating the words, phrases then sentences. It did help a lot. I continue that training on my on by listening to audiobooks and podcasts. But I have started out with a moderately severe cookie bite hearing loss. For years my loss was mild enough that I just didn’t bother with hearing aids, when I finally got aids it was almost too late.
But I agree your hearing will not likely be helped by hearing aids at this time. Seek help with speech understanding. And have at least annual hearing test because your hearing will more than likely become worse over time.

#6

get an over the counter hearing aid,don’t buy from an audiologist, they will charge you $$$ more.

#7

Thanks for posting this. I’ve never heard of auditory training and would love to know more. My issue with speech is limited to very corner cases. I do speech therapy for completely different purposes (not speech but cognitive issues).

#8

Hearing loss has two main parts - loudness and clarity. Unfortunately, hearing loss is too often defined just by loudness needs, as indicated on an audiogram. We all need things to be loud enough so it makes sense this is a top priority. Still, as in your case, someone might be told they don’t have hearing loss if their audiogram looks pretty good, yet they can’t hear people in noise. Clearly they need help with hearing! Hopefully you also got a speech in noise test to give you the other important measure of hearing loss. This is where assistive listening devices like remote mics come into play, as others suggested and aural rehab can also help.