Training Your Brain to Hear Better

The devices make the ears and brain process sounds differently, so noises catch their attention more than usual.

As a person keeps wearing their hearing aids, their ears and brain get used to this new way of hearing and can better focus on the sounds they really want to hear, like speech. It’s much like buying a grandfather clock; at first, the sound of the chime will catch your attention quite a bit and may even be annoying, but you can eventually tune it out altogether.

There are many reasons why a person might only wear their hearing aids occasionally, and they’re usually well-intentioned. Often, hearing-impaired people simply prefer wearing their hearing aids for specific occasions rather than all the time. Since understanding speech in noisy environments is one of the most frequent issues, some will choose to wear their hearing aids only in that type of environment. This reduces overall hearing aid use, which in turn can be a major obstacle for the adjustment process, even if the person has been wearing hearing aids for several years.

When hearing aids are used improperly or infrequently, the adjustment process can take longer than expected. In fact, some hearing aid users may believe that they have gotten used to their hearing aids, but will say they have trouble tolerating ambient noise when they wear their hearing aids. Wearing hearing aids continuously, whether you’re at home or out and about, helps you adjust to your hearing aids and optimizes hearing performance, including speech understanding in noise. In other words, it helps you make the most of your hearing aids!

If you want to learn more about how the brain adapts to hearing aid use, don’t hesitate to discuss it with an audiologist.