Listening to books on tape and using your listening skills more may seem difficult at first, but will become easier over time. After an initial period of adjustment, most people with low vision are surprised to find out how much information their senses of hearing, touch and even smell can supply them with.
Listening more entails remembering more. Again, most of us never develop our ability to remember what we hear to its fullest potential because we don’t need to. Improving your listening skills means giving your full attention to what you hear rather than dividing your attention between what you see and what you hear.
You may still receive visual cues from your eyesight, but most of your attention will now need to be shifted to listening. As you grow more accustomed to listening to books, newspapers and magazines on tape and working with screen-reader software, you will gradually find yourself remembering more of what you hear.
You can learn to “tune in to” your sense of hearing in many practical ways to assist with your daily functioning. For example, you can learn to locate the sound of the hum of your refrigerator to let you know that you are entering the kitchen, and the sound of cars and other street noises outside can tell you that you’ve left a window open, and where.
You can learn to rely more on your sense of touch in many practical areas as well. Selecting clothes from the closet, for example, can be made easier if you focus on the textures of fabrics and associate them with your mental picture of the garments.
If you have severe vision loss, the use of a cane or walker when walking outdoors allows you to use your sense of touch to get more information about your environment. These “feelers” will help you detect changes in the pavement, the closeness of objects and the presence of stairs. Even if you can find your way without a cane or walker, using your feet to feel your way along, especially when climbing or descending stairs, can augment your diminished vision and prevent dangerous falls.
Reviewed on 2/14/2008