Aural Rehabilitation

Aural rehabilitation is the process of helping someone effectively adjust to and manage his or her hearing loss. Methods of rehabilitation are focused on helping overcome the challenges caused by hearing loss, therefore improving the quality of day-to-day life. Adult rehabilitation strategies differ significantly from those used for children.

Adult rehabilitation may be offered in individual or group settings and generally encompasses these main points:

• Adjusting to and learning about your specific type of hearing loss
• Improving communication skills
• How to use, care for, and make the most of your hearing aids
• Exploring accessories for your hearing aids

The Different Parts of Aural Rehabilitation

Aural rehabilitation looks different for everyone. To find out what is right for you, talk to your hearing care provider.

1) Adjusting to and Learning About Your Specific Type of Hearing Loss

All hearing impairments aren’t the same, which is why it’s important to find out what caused yours, what characterizes your type of loss, and how it affects your functional hearing and communication abilities. This will not only help relieve frustrations when retraining your brain, it will also help you explain to your loved ones and friends what you go through.

2) Improving Communication Skills

Communicating involves more than just verbal skills; there are many pieces involved.

3) How to Use and Make the Most of Your Hearing Aids

Your hearing aid was chosen by you and your provider because it offers the best features for you and your lifestyle. Understanding exactly what your technology is designed to do (and not to do) will help you get the most out of it. Using hearing technology doesn’t mean everything is fixed, so having realistic expectations about what to expect with your devices will help you adjust more successfully to them.

4) Exploring Accessories for Your Hearing Aids

With technological advancements in hearing aids also come an array of possible accessories! Assistive listening devices that connect to your phone, TV, and music players are just some of the integrative options to accompany your technology. Plan to discuss augmented technologies with your hearing health care provider.

5) Support

There are two main kinds of support for those with hearing impairment. First, there are laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act, which offers accommodations for people with hearing loss in the workplace and other places you frequent (hospitals, churches, and courtrooms). Second, support groups provide significant help in meeting the daily challenges associated with living with hearing loss. While friends and family can be supportive, there’s nothing like talking to someone who knows exactly what you’re going through. Support groups can be found online or through your audiologist.

Aural Habilitation for Children

Rehabilitation is for those who have lost a skill, while habilitation is for those who never had it. The latter is the case for most young children with hearing loss. Children with hearing loss from a very young age face significant communication challenges and delays, and they require specific habilitative interventional techniques to catch up to their normal-hearing peers.

What your child’s habilitation looks like depends on:

• The severity of the impairment
• The child’s age at which the hearing loss occurred, was diagnosed, and was treated
• The type of hearing loss

Development

Identifying hearing loss as early as possible in a child is essential, because their impairment affects their ability to learn speech and language. According to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, early detection and early use of amplification has been shown to have a dramatically positive effect on the language abilities of a child with hearing loss.

The Different Parts of Child Aural Habilitation

“Auditory perception” is a clinical term that means helping your child:

• Identify sounds
• Tell the difference between sounds
• Attach meaning to sounds