WHAT EXACTLY DOES UNDERSTANDING SPEECH INVOLVE?
To understand speech we must be able to detect, decode and interpret what we hear. And that is a job for one of the most powerful natural processors of all, the human brain. 

It involves good hearing and the ability to process what we bear. Our ears have several complex, highly delicate mechanisms that work in perfect harmony to pick up sounds, channel them correctly and transform them into electrical signals for the brain to interpret.

To understand spoken language the brain must first decode the various speech signals - the vowels and consonants - and make words and sentences out of them. This complicated task is made even more complex in the presence of background noise and more difficult still when someone has hearing loss.

Even a mild hearing loss will raise three communication barriers. Hearing loss raises three communication barriers. First, soft sounds become difficult to hear. Secondly, consonants such as t, sh, f, p, a and th begin to fade. You might think that because they are higher pitched and spoken more softly than vowels, this wouldn't matter. But it does, the consonants actually convey most of the word information.

If you were to write a word and then remove the vowels you would probably still be able to decipher it. But write the same word. this time without the consonants, and you would have serious difficulty trying to decipher the word.

Basically, the role of the consonants is to separate syllables and words from one another - a task which takes place in the brain. If you can't hear the various sounds. they can't be passed on for deciphering and interpretation: it just sounds as though other people are mumbling.

The third and final communication barrier is noise. Restaurants are a good example of this - where the clatter of silverware, background music and peoples voices all compete for your attention. Without good hearing, your brain can run into dire straits trying to focus on what's important and filter out the babble!

Not all hearing devices can cope with these types of challenges, but Delta can. Deltas unique sound processing capabilities are designed to give your hearing just the boost it needs to understand speech, even in challenging situations.