Improving the Quality of Auditory Training by Making Tasks Meaningful

Abstract

Traditional auditory training (AT) typically includes activities that focus on the formal properties of sounds without requiring attention to meaning. After reviewing the psycholinguistic bases for requiring attention to meaning, the authors present a series of examples of how to modify purely form-oriented AT activities so that they become meaning oriented. For example, a purely form-oriented same–different task with /ba/–/pa/ or /ba/–/ba/ can be modified using minimal pairs such as /bear/–/pear/ or /bear/–/bear/ and by requiring listeners to identify appropriate picture pairs in order (i.e., pictures of a bear and then a pear, or of a bear and then another bear). The modified version requires attention to meaning, whereas the original version does not. The authors promote a nonhierarchical and interactive approach to AT in which activities at 3 linguistic levels (word, sentence, and discourse) are included from the beginning and throughout AT, but with activities that are carefully designed to be meaning oriented and in which comprehension is the central focus. In the Summary By Example section, the authors describe an AT program (I Hear What You Mean; Tye-Murray, Barcroft, & Sommers, in press) that was designed to be meaning oriented at the word, sentence, and discourse levels. Specific benefits of providing meaning-based AT, such as higher levels of participant engagement, are highlighted.