Passive Listening: Learning Through Overhearing
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Human beings can’t turn their hearing off: we hear through every waking (and often sleeping) moment. Each day offers countless listening opportunities, layered one over the other, competing for our brain’s attention. Our brain is constantly filtering out these competing incoming speech or sound signals if they are identified as “background noise”.
Listening and paying attention in noisy environments is exhausting, even for those with normal hearing. It is especially daunting for your deaf or hard of hearing child.
In this enlightening twentieth episode, Shefali Shah walks us through the wonder of passive listening: the ability to sift information to overhear and absorb the spoken message without being directly addressed. As families share their joy at witnessing their child learning new vocabulary through eavesdropping on family conversations, we are reminded that these moments are not accidents: they are signs of strong auditory-verbal development.
When listening becomes a habit, deaf or hard of hearing children learn through overhearing, just like children with typical hearing. They participate wholeheartedly in life, grounded in their sense of connection to their family and community.
Passive Listening is an essential learning skill.
This is The Sound Steps Podcast.
🎧 Top Tips from Episode 20
- Humans do not have ear lids. We hear even when we’re not trying to, as do our children.
- Passive Listening is spontaneous. It happens naturally and constantly.
- Attending to the relevant speech signal. The brain selects which speech signal to attend to; the other signals become part of an auditory background.
- Passive Listening gives us a sense of belonging. Passive Listening connects us to community or our environment, making us feel secure.
- Overhearing conversation helps learning: Children who overhear conversations begin learning without direct teaching, a hallmark of typical development.
Time Stamps:
00:00:00 Introduction
00:02:21 90% of deaf children are born to hearing parents
00:02:31 Choosing Auditory-Verbal Therapy for your deaf or hard of hearing child
00:02:43 AVT facilitates age-appropriate development
00:03:32 Abundant choices open up through AVT
00:03:59 Early identification and the fitting of early and optimal amplification.
00:04:07 A life free of limitations
00:04:16 Show notes, Top tips and Time Stamps
00:04:25 Links and contact details
00:04:30 Resources
00:04:37 Auditory-Verbal Techniques
00:04:54 Auditory-Verbal Techniques : Sabotage
00:05:20 Hearing cannot be switched-off in those with typical hearing
00:05:51 Meaning of Passive Listening
00:06:58 The importance of Passive Listening
00:10:25 Validate your child’s passive listening experience in conversation
00:12:19 Listening becomes a habit
00:14:49 Overhearing conversation to learn
00:18:24 Supporting auditory-memory
00:19:56 Monitoring Passive Listening
00:21:19 Becoming an independent learner
00:26:03 Reflection
00:26:31 Our next episode: Transformation: the new me!
Resources:
- 💬 Submit your question to the show: https://www.soundsteps.uk/podcast-ask-question/
- 👩⚕️ Face-to-face AVT with Shefali Shah (London): https://soundsteps.uk
- 🌐 Online AVT sessions available via AVT Direct: https://avtdirect.com
- 🎓 Train online as an LSL professional in AVT: https://learnavt.com
- 📧 Contact Shefali directly: shefalishah@soundsteps.uk