An Auditory Processing Disorder is the inability for an individual to make proper sense of information taken in through the ears.
This disorder has nothing to do with hard of hearing or deafness, but it is the difficulties experienced with how auditory information is processed by the sufferers brain.
This deficit of auditory processing can directly interfere with language and speech.
It can also affect an individual's entire area of learning especially that of spelling and reading.
The symptoms of Auditory Processing Disorder are not unique and can occur in individuals who suffer with other types of disorders or deficits namely, dyslexia, hearing loss and attention disorder.
Therefore, the presence of one or more of the following symptoms does not mean that a child is suffering from Auditory Processing Disorder but it might be in order that the child is referred to an audiologist for proper assessment.
Some Symptoms are: .
Has difficulty in following a lengthy conversation.
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Has difficulty in following someone when they speak in noisy surroundings.
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Has difficulty in either spelling and reading or both.
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Has difficulty in following multi step directions.
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Has difficulty in carrying out a conversation over the telephone..
Has difficulty in taking down notes.
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Has difficulty in organizational skills.
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Has difficulty in learning difficult vocabulary words and also learning a foreign language.
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Has difficulty in remembering spoken information.
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Is distracted easily and is unusually bothered by sudden or loud noises.
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Has difficulty in sustaining, directing or dividing attention.
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There is improvement in the individual' behavior and performance in quieter environs.
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Has difficulty in comprehending abstract information.
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Has difficulty in processing nonverbal information.
What causes Auditory Processing Disorder? A single cause is not responsible for this disorder, but some possible cause may include lead poisoning, head trauma and chronic ear infections and many other unknown reasons too.
There may even be a combination of causes rather than a single cause.
Each sufferer will have to be therefore assessed individually.
Helping your child out.
If your child has been diagnosed with this disorder there are several things you could do to help your child out: When you are speaking to your child, make him look at you, try as much as possible to reduce the background noise, speak in a slightly increased volume and slower rate, when you give your child instructions or directions make him repeat them aloud to you until he gets it right, when speaking use simple and expressive sentences.
Possible treatment.
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Modification of the environment such as placement, seating and classroom acoustics may help.
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Language building skills - These exercises can help to increase the child's language base and the ability to learn new words.
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Use of auditory trainers.
These are electronic devices which enable an individual to focus his attention on a speaker and also to reduce the background noise.
Used in classrooms the teacher wears a microphone and the child in question wears a headset.
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Auditory memory enhancement - this procedure reduces the detailed information to a more of a basic representation.