Auditory Training in Speech Recognition and Hyperacuity

For those suffering from hearing impairment, there can be a significant reduction in quality of life as a direct result of their affliction. As a primary sense, hearing impairment can affect everything from individual safety to the inner ear balance. Depending on how an individual comes to suffer from hearing impairment, an assortment of complications could further afflict patients down the line, leading scientists suggest that the aural connections to auditory cognitive processing is still far from being fully understood [2]. Conventional solutions to hearing impairment have typically taken the form of hearing aids and, in more complicated approaches to solving the issue, surgically implanted cochlear implants. These solutions have been a mainstay for decades, but new technological developments have further advanced the available solutions for those suffering from hearing impairment. These new advances might provide excellent tools in the ongoing work to alleviate the lives of those individuals suffering from hearing impairment. Auditory Training represents one such avenue of auditory rehabilitation without the prerequisite use of assistive listening devices such as hearing aids or cochlear implants. Developed as a means of harnessing the audible perception left for those with hearing impairment, auditory training is, in effect, a series of exercises that teaches patients to suppress noise on which they do not wish to concentrate, while focusing the information on with they do. Much of the research on the subject, however, indicates that results are still absent, specifically due to a lack of empirical research.