ORCA AUDIBILITY TRAINING CD

ORCA-USA has developed a bottom-up training CD for vowels and consonants for its research participants. This CD has been used by many clinicians with their patients.

It is a Take-home CD running on MS Windows 2000 and higher and requires a loudspeaker with a volume control. The objective of the CD is to increase attention to and identification of targeted sounds in quiet and in noise and is for adult use only.

There is directed listening to voiceless consonant sounds / p, t, k, s, f, Ө, ∫, t∫ / and all vowels.

The CD is not targeted at specific auditory skills such as auditory closure, etc (but hopefully attention, discrimination and memory skills are heightened)

It does have an option to perform training in variable noise backgrounds.

It is appropriate for anyone with a hearing loss, but especially ideal for those with a sloping high frequency loss. (Adults Only)

Each CD (There are 2: a vowel CD and a consonant CD) is a 10-day, 20-30 min training. The materials are read by three speakers (2 females & one male).

NOTE:  Not meant to replace commercial materials; NOT VALIDATED

Those interested in obtaining a copy of the ORCA-NST for research purposes may request a copy free of charge by contacting us.


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Screen Shots of the Audibility Training CD

"Count the Number"
This activity is to increase concentration on a selected phoneme in running speech.  There will be a reminder as to which sound they are listening for that day.

When the activity is opened, the patient will see a list for ten sentences with play buttons. The patient may choose any sentence to listen to and may listen as many times as they wish. The patient needs to listen carefully and count the number of times they can hear the target sound. The patient will enter the number in the space provided and then click the “check” button. A message box will appear to let the patient know if the number was correct or incorrect. If the number was incorrect, they can try again. The patient should attempt all ten sentences.
"Picture Puzzle"
The missing words in each puzzle will focus on a particular sound for that day.

When the activity is opened, the crossword puzzle will be displayed with a sentence above. The patient should hit the play button to listen to the sentence. The patient should click on the word that completes the sentence. If the word entered is correct, a part of the underlying picture will appear in the puzzle. If the word is incorrect, the patient should try again. The sentences may be listened to as many times as the patient wishes.
"Sound Matrix"
The purpose of this game is to help the patient differentiate between similar sounding words.

When the activity is opened, there will be a grid, with similar sounding words, along both axes. The patient clicks on a box and will hear two words and then clicks “Yes” or “No” to the question “Can you hear a difference?” If the patient answers the question correctly, the square will turn “Green” and if incorrect, the square will turn “Red”. The words will sound more similar (task gets harder) the closer to the middle diagonal that the patient gets.
"Sound Matching"
The purpose of this game is to familiarize the patient with high frequency consonant sounds. Have your patient try to focus on the subtle differences between the sounds as they listen.

When the activity is opened, there will be two columns:  column A is the main stimulus that should be matched to the stimulus in column B. The patient may click on any of the items in column A. Once they listen to the target sound in A, they should click on an item in column B and listen. If it is a match, the two items will disappear.  If it is not a match, the patient should start over with either the same item in column A or a new item in column A. The play continues until all of the items have been matched.