Listening is a Learned Skill

Last Friday I went in for a mapping and a session with my speech pathologist. Nothing really exciting there, and the novelty of the CI has worn off already. When the novelty of having a CI wears off, that's when the real work begins. The real work is learning how to listen.

Photo Credit: Gina Baksa Life Coaching, May 2009

Lemme back up a bit... I have already accepted the fact that I will be reading lips for the rest of my life, even if I am able to understand by hearing only. Lipreading is a permanent part of who I am, ingrained into myself soon after birth. But the people I could not communicate with pre-CI were those who spoke like ventriloquists, had accents, or just talked too fast. Now, I could understand most of what they say even if I don't see their lips move much.

My audiologist talks exceedingly fast with a northerner accent, but I could understand almost everything she said. Last month, I told the receptionist that I didn't think I would need an interpreter for the next appointment. So I went in on Friday without an interpreter, and she went on talking about her experiences with other patients who got CIs and asked me questions about how I feel about being in both hearing and deaf worlds - that will be another post for another day. When she had me take off my CI so she could tweak it, she would say something but I was unable to catch a single word. Watching lips twitch and tongues flapping in total silence - I'm lost. "Hold on, I need the CI so I can hear you... *click* ... ahhh, there, so much better... and you were just saying??" We then had an engaging conversation about deaf and hearing worlds and being in the middle - again, another post another day.

Back to listening.

Listening is not just knowing what they said, but also comprehending and understanding what ideas they are trying to convey. You can know what they said, and still not understand what they are conveying. But you cannot comprehend their ideas without understanding what they said.

That's why listening is so difficult. It's a task in and of itself for deaf people like me to JUST understand what they are saying and what words they are using. Then we also gotta comprehend what they are conveying - taking note of their facial expressions, body language, tone, what they did NOT say and read between their lines.

If you miss a keyword here and there, that affects how you comprehend what they are saying. So what I like to do is parrot back what they are saying to make sure I got it right. Not word for word, of course - that just gets annoying! I repeat only the keywords that I think I got. For example:

Her: "So the other day I was watching my neighbor's dog out of my window"
Me: "Your neighbor's dog..."
Her: "Right. It was a mixed lab and terrier..."
Me: "Lab and what?"
Her: "Terrier"
Me: "Terrier, uh huh, go on..."
Her: "And she was like, chasing him around in her front yard and she couldn't catch him... she was getting frustrated but the dog was wagging his tail all happy and teasing her"
Me: "Oh yeah, he's playing, won't let her catch him..."

You get the idea. As a new cochlear implantee, understanding what the other person is saying requires me to "flip a switch" in my mind and tune in. If I don't flip that switch, all I'm going to see is lips twitching, tongues flapping, and hear mmmn-bluhhn-blahh-shhhhh-ssss-mmmnnop-mmluhssss-blashhh-nnnmm-ushhh.

That's exactly what happens when I'm neither listening nor tuned in. It happens when I'm daydreaming. It also happens when I'm waiting impatiently for the other person to finish talking so I could spit out whatever I wanted to say. Everything just flies right past my head. At this point, it takes me a little effort to tune in.

I actually don't mind because I'm finding that it's worth the extra effort - things seem to magically make sense when I actively listen. Okay well, most of the time ;-)