Listening Ability? How Does One Learn To Listen? Friday, August 25, 2006

It’s only been almost 3 weeks, and I’m already worried about the CI and my listening ability.

I wonder if I’m doing the right things to maximize my potential. Am I listening to the right stuff? Am I doing the right kinds of things to try and maximize my speech perception? All these types of questions and thoughts have been swirling around in my head.

I’ve been so used to doing therapy, therapy, therapy, and getting feedback from what I’m doing, that right now I feel like that what I do, on my own, isn’t helping. Everything I do has a visual component to it. It’s difficult to watch TV or read along with books, because I fall back on my “hearing aid” training, and use my vision more than using my brain to listen and understand what is being said. At the same time, I’m not getting the reinforcement of “yes, what I heard or thought I heard is indeed correct.”

On Monday, Susan said that I need to write for myself and not for others (where have I heard that before?). She wants me to write a daily log of my adventures in sound, and what I’m hearing, so that I can look back in 6 months and go “wow, that was a really rough time, but look where I am now and at what I’m hearing! YAY ME!”

I do well with the words in a list format, but have trouble with sentences. Mom did word lists with me, after I saw Megan earlier this week, and she started a new category of vegetables with me. However, I got it the hard way, instead of “mushroom”, “lettuce”, “tomato”, I was getting “portabella mushroom”, “bibb lettuce”, and “roma tomato”. That’s pretty much standard for our house, as we get different kinds of specific veggies for my guinea pig. However, I did get “jalapeno” right on the first try! She’s also been reading my favorite childhood book, “Cars, Trucks, And Things That Go” to me for listening practice. I love that book so much.

Today, I saw Megan for #6 and we tinkered around with the speech program some more. I have trouble with “C” and “M”, and hearing the first part of a word. I also told her about my concerns with listening. I know I don’t have patience (especially for somebody my age, as I was reminded by my dad on activation day!) and want more! She brought out the other computer that had the Sound and Beyond program that was made by Cochlear Americas. I got to play with it for awhile, and it was fantastic. I loved how if you get a word wrong, it repeats the correct word and the wrong word, so you can compare it.

This kind of program is right up my alley because it has a similar concept as the Touch&Tell that I had as a kid. What can I say, I love hands-on learning! It is awfully expensive, 290 dollars, but it might be an investment well worth making if it will help me, and I did enjoy using it…I could have played with it all day if I was allowed to.

I got 76% on the words when we played with the computer, she said I was doing pretty well for just under 3 weeks. The other cool thing this program does is that it plays music and then lets you pick which instrument produced that melody. I was able to get the piano and the xylophone right. But when it came to the violin, ughhhhhhhhh it sounded horrible! And I used to play the violin! But the piano sounded much better (after 10+ years of playing, I should have an ear for it).

Electrode #13 doesn’t have that special sound for me anymore. It’s so weird, because it sounded nothing like it did the last time. Megan did the beep test again today, and Electrode #6 sounded exactly like my mom’s old car alarm (park avenue) when it goes off. Now I have a way to describe what it sounds like to those who can’t hear what’s in my head!

T-Mic Hook: P1+2 – speech, P3 – 70/30 mix for DC.
DC Hook: P1+2 – iPOD only, P3 – 70 iPOD/30 environment.

I also have a battery log that Megan created so I can find out if I have a bad battery, a bad “charging slot” or if it’s just the program that is draining my battery fast on the CI. I do have powerful programs on my CI which draws a lot of power off the battery. My 18 hour battery is only lasting 12 hours, and I was totally unprepared for that the other day when the CI battery died on me.