Colleagues at the National Acoustic Laboratories in Australia developed this evidence-based training game to improve ability to hear in noise. The game aspect of the software has since been revised to make it more appealing and it is now marketed as ‘Sound Storm’.
Cameron, S., & Dillon, H. (2011). Development and evaluation of the LiSN & learn auditory training software for deficit-specific remediation of binaural processing deficits in children: preliminary findings. Journal of the American Academy of Audiology, 22(10), 678-696.
The LiSN & Learn auditory training software was developed to improve binaural processing skills in children with suspected central auditory processing disorder who were diagnosed as having a spatial processing disorder (SPD). SPD is a condition whereby individuals are deficient in their ability to use binaural cues to selectively attend to sounds arriving from one direction while simultaneously suppressing sounds arriving from another. As a result, children with SPD have difficulty understanding speech in noisy environments, such as in the classroom.
LiSN & Learn produces a three-dimensional auditory environment under headphones on the user’s home computer. The child’s task is to identify a word from a target sentence presented in background noise. A weighted up-down adaptive procedure is used to adjust the signal level of the target based on the participant’s response.
Participants trained on the LiSN & Learn for 15 min per day for 12 weeks.
On average, speech reception thresholds on the LiSN & Learn improved by 10 dB over the course of training. Significant improvements were found post-training on measures of memory, on one measure of attention, and on self-reported ratings of listening ability. Children as young as 6 years of age of age were able to complete the training. Both parents and children reported benefits from the training.