Now that you’re improving your hearing

INSIDE: LACE “Listening and Communication Enhancement” Software will help you retrain your brain to listen to your ears.

ARE YOUReadY toLISTEN?

Hearing Listeningis one thing. is another.

Hearing with your ears. Vibrating sound waves are turned into nerve impulses that travel along a network of nerve cells to the brain where they are perceived as sound.

Listening with your brain. Vibrating sound waves are turned into meaningful words and understandable speech, so you can feel confident and enjoy day-to-day activities.

did you know that even though you’ve taken steps to improve your hearing you still may be missing out on words and conversations? that’s because you hear with your ears—but you listen with your brain. even people with normal hearing can have poor listening skills and miss parts of what is said. the good news is that your brain can be trained to use strategies that compensate for situations when your hearing ears alone may not be enough. LaCe—Listening and Communication enhancement—is a computerized, interactive software training program that helps

improve your ear-to-brain muscle memory. Just as physical therapy can help rebuild physical strength and compensate for weakness, LaCe can assist in developing listening, communication, and interaction skills. You can use LaCe at home on your computer or at your audiologist’s office. Even if you don’t have a hearing loss, LACE can help you hone your listening skills to understand speech in difficult hearing environments, like restaurants, crowds, or groups of people.

LACE is the link between the sounds your ears hear and how your brain interprets them.

Conquer the f ive challenges of listening. as your hearing improves, you’re going to notice that the world is a noisier place. Loud traffic, poor acoustics, people talking on cell phones—it can all add up to meaningless chatter when you’re trying to hear what someone is saying. this is where the art of listening comes in. Listening empowers you to give your brain the information it needs to make sense of what someone is saying in situations where it’s difficult to hear. You can enhance your brain’s listening capability by learning how to overcome five listening challenges. LaCe offers a variety of listening exercises to conquer the five challenges of listening. As you go through your training, you’ll receive feedback that helps you with your learning. there are also helpful hints and communication strategies to help keep you motivated and on track.

Hear the forest through the trees. Speech is far more difficult to understand when there is background noise. You may find yourself having trouble understanding conversations at restaurants or in large groups of people—even when the person speaking is right next to you. For these situations, you can develop skills that help you identify and isolate speech in loud environments. LACE can help you train your brain how to pick out a voice in a noisy place.

Speech in Noise1

Competing SpeakerCompeting Speaker2 3Stay ahead of the fast-talker. It’s difficult to understand

someone who talks very fast. as the rate of speech increases, more of

the signal that travels from your ear to your brain can drop out. Since

language is repetitive, the word that was “dropped” is most likely stored

away in your brain. You can teach your brain how to quickly locate the

word that you missed and follow along with the rest of the conversation.

LACE can help you develop rapid thought processing skills to make up for lost sounds.

Block the double talk. discriminating between two or more

voices can be tricky. You may find the second voice mixing with the one

that you’re trying to understand. This mixing effect makes it difficult to

block out the extra voices and focus on just one. often, you can address

this challenge simply by asking people to identify themselves to you when

they are speaking. You can also train your brain to focus on the person

speaking.

LACE can help you teach your brain to focus on one voice at a time.

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5Fill in the _____________. Sometimes you may not hear

every word a person says, but you’re able to understand the conversation

based on what you know about the situation, the person talking, and the

rules of language. This knowledge allows you to fill in any speech that was

missed. through training, you can learn how to maximize your language

skills and add them to your growing set of listening strategies.

LACEcanhelpyourbrainlearntofillinwordsyou’ve missed based on what you know.

Pump up your memory. the ability to remember the words

you have heard becomes very important in difficult listening situations.

Word memory helps you fill in what you’ve missed and predict what

might be said next. By focusing on target words, you can train your brain

to store entire sentences in your short-term memory, making it easier to

follow complete conversations.

LACE can help you remember the words the person talking has said and predict what may come next.

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Start retraining your brain to listen today. to get started, simply drop this Cd with the LaCe software into your computer. It works on both Windows and apple PCs, so it’s easy to install. each day, after you complete your LaCe listening, your progress will be sent automatically to your health care provider’s office. Don’t worry, LACE uses a secure server, so your computer will be safe and your information will stay private.

think of it as physical therapy for your brain. Just as your body responds to physical therapy over time, so can your brain.

By following the LACE training schedule of 30 minutes a day, five days a

week for four weeks, you’ll notice your skills improving in a relatively

short amount of time. Most people raise their listening scores by the fifth

day of training, and keep right on improving all the way to day twenty.

LaCe makes it easy for you and your health care provider to track your

progress, too. at the end of each training session, LaCe automatically

transmits your exercises to your provider’s office using a secure server.

Your provider can view your training and make appropriate adjustments

to your hearing therapy.

You hear with your ears. train your brain to listen.LaCe—Listening and Communication enhancement—is a personal

computer software program that helps you train your brain to listen

better. LaCe is designed to complement your therapy during your hearing

aid trial period. But LaCe can also be used by anyone—with or without

hearing loss—who wants to build listening confidence in difficult hearing

situations.

• LaCe is a home-based, self-paced listening training program.• Runs on Windows or apple PCs.• Simple and intuitive—even for computerphobes.

• Helps compensate for hearing loss by strengthening thinking and memory skills and providing situational strategies.

• automatically transmits your results to your health care provider for easy tracking of your progress.

• teaches you how to conquer listening challenges, like noisy restaurants, so you can enjoy daily activities more.

Listening and Communication enhancement SoftwareNeurotone | 2317 Broadway Suite #250 | Redwood City, Ca 94063

www.neurotone.com