There are many aspects to listening or auditory processing, some of which we’ve dealt with in the existing pages. For example, having the bigrams available at 80% helps students with slower auditory processing. Here are other considerations:
1- Processing Speed- Neuroscientist Paula Tallal* says that the difference between a “b” sound and “d” sound is only about 40 milliseconds (4/100 sec.) at the start of the sound. This is one reason why these letters are hard for some to distinguish- they sound similar and look similar.** Percussive consonants like d and b are hard to slow down during speech, but in a recording, they can be stretched out digitally, making this 40ms more accessible.
Learning how to listen.
Now you might think that if a child speaks well, they've figured out the difference in sound between “b” and “d,” but part of Tallal's point is that letter decoding has to happen rapidly, and if there's an ambiguity in the sound phoneme stored in the brain, that disrupts the process. In other words, the letter symbol has to connect to a defined sound, not one that is fuzzy. Obviously, there is a visual, and eye-tracking component to the b/d conundrum, but we'll save that for those subjects.
2- Working Memory and Attention- The next factor is auditory working memory. Working memory is a temporary memory that one uses to work with more than one thing, like a mental scratch pad. If I tell you three numbers to add, you would probably add the first two and put the sum into your working memory to add the last one, which you also pull out of your working memory. If you want a student to be able to remember several instructions, or some day write notes based on listening, then their working memory needs to be developed. It starts here.
Part of this process is attention or focus: You know that attention can make you smarter, Without it everything flows right by like water.
Listening Solution 1- Here's a page of hard consonant letter sounds digitally slowed down to 60% to help slower processors. Soft sounds can be slowed down verbally, but for hard sounds, it's like trying to play a drum slowly.
Listening Solution 2-Check the Beat-1
Listening Solution 3- Check the Beat- Round 2- Increasing Listening Time Span
Listening Solution 4- Lists for Working Memory: Letter List- Start with circling any 3 letters in any direction. (Circling keeps track of which ones have been done for each student.) Have student repeat the letters as given, then in reverse order. If 3 is too many go to 2. If mastered go on to 4 or more.
Object Lists- Same idea, start with the list of 3, but some students will have to go back to 2. Then move on to lists of 4, then add your own. You can also ask questions like, “What was the second thing I said?”
* Paula Tallal and the Temporal Processing Deficit- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2uWbhGcdIQ
**See the discussion on “mirror invariance” on the Eye Movement page.