Auditory Therapy Puts Me Another Step Closer

For my first official therapy session, we did two different exercises. The first exercise was to practice hearing the beginning sound of words. For this exercise, she went through a list of 120 word pairs and I had to tell her if the beginning sound of the two words were the same. Here are a few examples:

Drive-Live

News-Views

Same-Fame

Top-Hop

Skip-Ship

While doing this, she was facing me, but had the piece of paper covering her mouth. I also made sure to look down so that I could practice not being so dependent on looking at people to hear them. If I got the answer incorrect, she pulled the paper down and repeated again allowing me to read her lips to identify the sound.

While this seems like such a simple task, it was not so simple for me. I didn’t do horribly. I was able to identify beginning sounds for 103 out of the 120 word pairs (85.8%). However, I did guess on some of them... If she had asked me to repeat the two words, I probably would have done much much worse. I told her about this and she said that it is okay and that right now she just wants me to listen to the word sounds instead of trying to identifying the word. This will come later!

Since I am having trouble hearing short quick constanant sounds all of the word pairs I listed above were ones I got incorrect. To me, the word “same” and “fame” sound the same because all my brain knows how to hear is the “_ame” of the word.

The next exercise we did was similar. However, instead of identifying if the beginning of the word was the same, I had to identify if the end of the word was the same (i.e., if the words rhymed). Here are a few examples:

Call-Pull

Bend-Wind

Bind-Blond

Boat-Tote

I am happy to say I did much better on this one! I was able to correctly identify if a sound rhymed for 111 of the 120 words (92.5%). The word pairs that I listed above are a few that I was not able to identify on my first try. My therapist reviewed these with me and showed me how the quicker vowel sounds may also be difficult for me to differentiate between such as the “eh” sound in bend and “ih” sound in wind.

Before she left, she gave me an interactive computer program that she often uses for her dyslexic patients since it is all about sound discrimination: what each letter sounds like, the difference between each sound, how to sound out different words. Remember "Hooked on Phonics". Well, it is sort of like that. She gave me the first level of this program to do as practice on my own and said that she would give me the next program once I got through this whole program. She also provided me with some "homework" for me to practice with Fraser. I am actually excited to practice all of this!

This whole experience of seeing a therapist has been really eye opening for me. I think it is helpful for me to understand and see why I am missing the parts of conversation that I do and why I think people say something completely different than they do. I think that this realization and understanding has been and will continue to be a large part in my path to acceptance. When we are in denial about our hearing loss, we do not really understand what is happening to us. Why is it becoming difficult to have a conversation with someone in a restaurant? Why am I not able to hear people when they talk to me from the next room? Why is it less enjoyable for me to be around my friends and family? Why am I getting angry and frustrated with people for not talking loud enough? Why am I so tired all the time? These are just few of the many questions we are pondering in our minds. It is very liberating to have less questions and more answers!

Whether the problem for me is more physical (i.e., my actual hearing) or mental (i.e., my brains ability to identify these sounds), I am not sure at this point in the process. Thinking about this, since I was in such denial about my hearing loss I waited until I absolutely HAD to get hearing aids. Even then, I only wore them to class and work until about 3 years ago. I think that prolonging the inevitable act of getting hearing aids is why these sounds are not familiar to me. If I would have gotten hearing aids when my hearing loss was only mild, I may have been able to still hear the “f” and “t” and “s” sounds with hearing aids, and therefore, my brain would not have lost the ability to identify these sounds or my brain would not have been in the dark about these sounds for 10 whole decade; the gap would have at least been smaller.

I know I cannot drive myself crazy with these "what if's". This is all in the past, and there is nothing that can be done now except to move forward with the knowledge I now have. However, I am saying this and sharing this to motivate others to get hearing aids before it is too late to truly reap all of the benefits they have to offer. Technology today is AMAZING and sadly, most people do not take full advantage of this due to the stigma society puts on wearing hearing aids. If you have the choice... Don't do what I did! Don’t wait! Strive to understand! Get your hearing checked out! Get hearing aids if your audiologist says you need them! Life is too short to waste it in the haze of denial. Acknowledge, accept, and move forward. How do you expect to get anywhere in life when you are just standing still?