New Auditory Training Therapy at Harley Street Hearing
Harley Street Hearing has an exciting new Auditory Training Therapy (ATT) service, and we did an interview with Nadia Abbott, Senior Audiologist at Harley Street Hearing who is running the service to find out more about it.
Welcome Nadia, thanks for taking the time to speak with us! So, tell us a bit more about your background:
I graduated as a Speech Therapist and Audiologist at the University of Pretoria in South Africa in 2010 and over the years I have worked in both speech therapy and audiology settings in South Africa and the UK. There are not always ample opportunities wherein I can combine these two qualifications’ skillsets but with this new service there is a nice balance between the two.
So tell us what is Auditory Training Therapy?
With the auditory training therapy my background is in the Buffalo Model therapy which was developed initially to treat auditory processing disorder (APD) but has been successful in helping anyone who has processing difficulties to improve these skills, this includes those with hearing loss. The therapy is individualised and focuses on the auditory processing skills that are affected like speech-in-noise processing, sound identification and discrimination, localisation and sound integration from both ears. It does this by helping patients to make new associations between the words or parts of words (called phonemes) that they are hearing and what has actually been said.
Ok let’s take a step back, what is Auditory Processing Disorder?
Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) is a disorder of the central auditory system which causes a disruption in the way an individual’s brain understands what they are hearing. It does not affect the hearing mechanism and can exist in people with normal hearing but also co-exist with individuals who have a hearing loss. In much more basic terms, it’s what the brain does with what the ears hear.
Typical characteristics of someone with APD:
- Unable to localise the direction of sound.
- Difficulty understanding words that are spoken quickly or in a noisy room.
- Difficulty paying attention to auditory information.
- Reading and spelling difficulties.
- Challenges following directions unless they are short and simple.
- Challenges with learning a new language.
- Difficulties singing or enjoying music.
- Trouble understanding and remembering spoken information.
- Taking longer to reply to someone who is talking to you.
- Often need others to repeat themselves.
- Struggles to understand sarcasm or jokes.
Does a person have to be diagnosed with APD to benefit from Auditory Training Therapy?
Yes and no. If someone has normal hearing but they suspect they may have APD then we would recommend an APD assessment to diagnose APD and to determine which processing skills, they struggle with.
If someone has hearing loss, then we know that some of their processing skills will be affected due to the loss and duration of the loss, so in these cases the assessment is not done to necessarily diagnose APD but to determine which processing skill are affected so we can focus our therapy accordingly. Hearing technology would also be recommended since improving access to speech sounds will help ensure the brain is getting as much information as possible which helps with processing. Beyond this, if there are still difficulties then ATT would also be recommended.
Expanding on that last point, Harley Street Hearing has a lot of patients with hearing loss, so who would you recommend should have ATT?
Patients who would benefit most from this therapy are individuals who have been fitted with hearing aids and have had fine tunings and adjustments made to their hearing aids but still feel that they are struggling in various situations regarding their hearing. It is important to note that often the difficulties experienced are not a result of the ears not accessing the sound with the hearing aids but more due to how this sound is processed by the brain. During ATT we identify where the brain is struggling, and we address this in the therapy. This therapy has even been proven to be successful for individuals with Cochlear Implants, a special type of hearing device that is implanted into the ear.
How is the Auditory Training Therapy program structured at Harley Street Hearing?
The program consists of 12 weeks of therapy but there will always be an assessment before we start therapy and a re-assessment at the end to determine the level of improvement of the affected auditory skillset. This therapy can be offered in the clinic or via telecare remote sessions over Zoom.
If someone is interested in Auditory Training Therapy, what should they do to access this service?
If you have already been diagnosed with APD, suspect you may have APD or if you are already one of our loyal patients who wears hearing aids and feel that you need some additional help to improve your hearing experience then give us a call to get more information or to get the right appointment booked for you. Contact us here.
Thank you so much Nadia for taking the time to speak with us about Auditory Processing Disorder and Auditory Training Therapy!
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