Early listening skills – learning to listen and listening to learn

Your child’s hearing aids will help them access sounds

Little and often is the best way to start

The best advice for hearing aid and cochlear implant use in the very early stages of your baby getting used to wearing them is little and often:

• Put the hearing aids/processors on your baby when they are awake, alert and happy.
• Talk and sing to your baby so they hear your voice.
• Point out sounds all around you in the environment and make listening a fun experience.

As your baby gets older, try to increase the amount of time your baby is wearing aids/processors as the amount of time they are alert and awake increases. The goal is to have your baby wearing them all day everyday as they get older.

Remember – there is no easy solution to keeping in hearing aids!

We’ve said it before, but try not to get frustrated if your baby is always pulling out their hearing aids. Ask any parent of a child with hearing aids and they will tell you that all babies go through this phase. You think they will never grow out of it, and that your baby is worse than others. They are not! In time they will learn the benefit of wearing them and they will stop using them as a toy! Stick with it – you will get there!

Sounds and voices are all around us

Sounds occur all around us naturally all day, every day. In the early stages of listening development, it is important to ‘explore’ sounds together with your baby.

Your voice is something you want your baby to tune into, recognise and enjoy, so it is important to talk, talk, talk! and sing, sing, sing! with your baby. Let them hear and experience your voice and those of others in your family – point them out and listen for them – ‘I hear Daddy, let’s find Daddy’;’ Listen, I can hear Grandma, where’s Grandma?’

In addition to voices, there is a never-ending supply of sounds to listen to throughout the day. Outside, you may hear cars, an aeroplane, horn honking, siren, birds chirping, etc. Inside, you may hear running water, a toilet flushed, a knock on the door, a telephone ring, and other household sounds. These sounds are all important and you can point them out to your baby to help him take notice of them.

Music is another fun way of experiencing sound with your baby. Enjoy things like rattles, bells, drums and noisemakers together. Let your baby hear, see and feel sound – using many of his senses to take it all in.

Helping your baby become aware of sounds

The first step in learning to listen is called ‘sound awareness’ or ‘sound detection’. This means that your baby hears and notices a sound, although they might not know what it is.

Use music and song

Using music and nursery rhymes is an easy way to help your baby practise sound awareness. Put on some music and move appropriately to the rhythm and beat of the music. If it is an upbeat nursery song, bounce and move to the beat. If it is slow and soothing bedtime music, sway and rock to the rhythm. Stop the music, and stop the movement at the same time. Point out to your baby that the music has stopped and just listen to silence for a bit. Then put the music on again and begin to move again. Repeat this game for as long as your child is interested.

This simple activity is teaching your baby the very beginning stage of listening – that sound is present or absent – on or off.

Other ways to help your baby

As well as using music and nursery rhymes, you can help your baby become aware of sounds by:

• drawing their attention to any loud sounds made by toys, loud rattles and quieter noisemakers, sounds around the home – hunt out noisy toys, household sounds, or sounds in the garden
• experimenting with noises and noise makers –  hitting wooden spoons on a saucepan lid, tapping two saucepan lids together, dropping  toy bricks in an empty tin, musical instruments
• Different voices talking – “I can hear your brother calling, let’s go find him”; “that’s Mummy calling, let’s go get Mummy”.

Help your baby use their senses

When possible, let your baby enjoy seeing, listening and feeling sound around him. If you have a toy drum, tap the drum while your baby’s hands or feet are touching the drum. This allows him to hear it and feel it. Don’t forget to tap the drum and point out the sound, stop, and then experience the silent time together. You could say ‘It stopped, where is it? I don’t hear it!’. Start again and say ‘There it is, I hear the drum!’. Rattles, bells and shakers could be shaken on his tummy – this lets him feel, see and hear the sound.

Watch how your baby responds to sound

Notice the different ways your child responds to sound. Does he widen his eyes, kick with arms and legs excitedly, still and /or relax. Make sure you notice and respond to your child’s reactions to sound. Let him know this is really positive – ‘Hooray, you heard that, it was the drum’; ‘That music is loud, well done, you heard that!’.

Make a note of how your baby responds to sound – noting the sound and how your baby responded. Babies respond selectively to sound. Loud, percussive sounds can startle; low repetitive sounds can soothe.

Babies respond to sounds in many different ways, including:

• widening their eyes
• becoming more active
• moving their arms and/or legs
• becoming still
• smiling
• startling

Something that will help your audiology team is for you to take notice of the types of sounds your baby responds to while wearing their aids/processor(s). Are the sounds loud or quiet? Does your baby respond to high squeaky sounds, medium pitched sounds and low deep sounds. Noting high, medium and low pitch for the sounds can be very meaningful (and helpful) for your support team.

Keep a note of responses to sounds

It’s a good idea to keep an ongoing record of the different ways your baby responds to different sounds.

Encouraging longer periods of hearing aid use

Make a mental note of how long your baby is wearing their hearing technology throughout the day. Try to slowly build up this amount of time so that your baby is wearing their aid(s) as often as possible when awake and alert.

This may start out as only a few minutes at a time, progressing to half-hour/hour at a time, then hours at a time and then most of the day, and finally all the time he is awake. As parents, you will want your baby doing as much as possible as quickly as possible, but sometimes this takes time to build up. Be patient and follow your child’s lead. It will be worth it in the long-run.

Keep background noise to a minimum

Please remember that background noise makes it very difficult for your child to listen and hear, particularly in the early stages of learning to listen. Be aware that background sounds may interfere with listening and try to keep them to a minimum. Find a quiet part of the house to practise listening games, so when you present a sound to your child they can focus on that individual sound with distracting background noise,