Learn braille. If you're not an auditory learner, braille will provide the closest experience to reading print.

You can make it more dynamic by changing material and testing yourself. Try listening to something from a genre you enjoy and do comprehension tests at intervals. You may be able to find online tests for popular books, and there's always the classics, just listen to a few chapters and try taking a premade test on the material.

You may also want to try adjusting playback speed, at first I had to slow stuff down to discern, then I could go full speed, now I get bored if it's not fast enough. If I'm reviewing course materials or an audiobook, I'll listen quickly, but if it's a well narrated novel or audio drama I'll listen at full speed.

I struggled to Adapt to e books... I started writing notes as I listen and then re read those notes later... I need to REALLY remind myself to focus... even though I don’t need to read the ebooks it’s actually pretty mentally draining for me needing to focus so intently

to be fair I will always take a "screen-read" book where I can read it paragraph by paragraph or sentence by sentence, or even better a Braille book where I can set my own pace best and where I can be my own narrator, however I understand how that's not always possible.

A good resource for public domain books is LibriVox, likewise get a Bookshare account if you don't already have one.

as to figuring how to get better with audio, my first advice is to have the best quality headphones you can afford, noise cancelling is important to me.

secondly, take copious notes, so that means you will have to be able to pause and to rewind the book to get the exact quotes. what format do you write your notes, sometimes I am old fashioned and use my Brailler, and sometimes I type them out in a word processor.

after I make my notes on the chapter/section I go back and read my notes over again to study them and see if it jogs my memory for anything I missed.

If all else fails look up Sparknotes or places like that, or ask fellow classmates to borrow their notes while you listen to the book.

What about doing a warm-up, so to speak? Spend a few minutes listening to a short story or podcast that you find genuinely interesting but not challenging - sort of ease your brain into listening mode and then switch to the assigned content.

Additionally, when I was studying for my teaching certification, I found that my listening skills improved markedly when a friend was kind enough to read the not-too-accessible textbook to me. There was a sense of accountability to her that helped me pay attention. That might be a way to ease into recorded audio content.

I would say the best way to digest audio is to make sure your cassettes, records, and CDs are all in nice little bite-size pieces. Put them in your mouth one at a time, chew until you feel ready and then swallow. I don’t know how long the body takes to digest audio, but hopefully this helps. Perhaps wave files or MP3s might be easier than physical audio, so try and see what works for you. LOL I am in a weird mood today.

Pause the audio after different sections and ideas to think about and absorb the material.

Use the sleep timers to force yourself to stop every so often and confirm you’ve understood what you’ve read.

Use bookmarks/audioclips to mark significant passages and review as needed

Use a secondary device for note taking (voice memo, digital recorder) to summarize what you’ve learned and need to remember.

Something like a penfriend can be used to make review materials.

Long term the investment in learning braille will be worth the returns for efficient self communication