SoundScape 2

Welcome to SoundScape2!Learning to listen with your hearing aid(s) or cochlear implant(s) should not be boring and it should be fun. SoundScape2 is an interactive auditory training platform that was created by an audiologist and a researcher and was designed to meet your listening needs. This application is suitable for anyone seeking to improve their sound perception and discrimination in a variety of listening environments. SoundScape2 was developed based on the latest research findings and using current clinical strategies in auditory training. Auditory training is the process of associating sounds to meaning through structured and repetitive listening exercises with immediate feedback. Hearing loss not only reduce your ability to detect sounds, but it also may impair your ability to discriminate speech sounds based on their spectral and temporal properties. This degradation in the quality of perceived sounds makes it very difficult for your brain to interpret speech especially in the presence of background noise.While hearing aids or cochlear implants can restore your ability to hear speech sounds, they will not help you understand those sounds and structured auditory training is still required to further enhance this ability. Clinical research has shown that auditory training can improve hearing aid and cochlear implant users’ skills to recognize and interpret speech sounds. This was true for both adults and children and even for the most experienced users. Auditory training was originally established to be used with hearing-impaired children. However, based on its efficacy in improving the perception of speech sounds, it was later advocated for use with adults with hearing loss and for normal hearing children with auditory processing disorders or those with specific language impairment. Auditory training programs are typically structured based on Erber’s hierarchy of listening skills which is known as the listening ladder; these include sound detection, sound discrimination, sound identification, and sound comprehension.Why train with soundscape2?SoundScape2 is designed to transform the process of auditory training into a fun, interactive and convenient process by combining auditory training and modern mobile gaming into one platform. This application will offer you a comprehensive training on the second process of Erber’s hierarchy of listening skills which is sound discrimination. You will learn how to discriminate a variety of speech sounds based on their segmental and suprasegmental features as well as their voicing, place, and manner of their articulation. The application features 20 levels of progressive difficulty to empower you during your journey from hearing sounds to hearing conversation. Auditory speech discrimination training will progress from acoustically dissimilar pairs of sounds (gross discrimination) to acoustically similar pairs of sounds (fine discrimination). These levels can be unlocked as you gain more listening power.What does SoundScape2 offer? SoundScape2 features the following:• Levels of progressive difficulty to enhance your performance in the more difficult listening situations • Discrimination of different environmental sounds you may experience in daily life.• Six Ling sounds with the ability to track your performance• Discrimination of segmental and supra-segmental aspects of speech including stress, loudness, intonation, and sound duration. • Discrimination of minimal pairs with progressive difficulty levels• Variety of speakers of different age and gender to mimic realistic listening environments• Training mode that can be enabled and disabled by users to support more customized training• Results and progress view to track your performance• Fun and engaging endless runner games to make the training less boring and more engaging • Self-paced training offering you the ability to train on your own time and at your own pace