Auditory Processing disorder (APD):
It’s an inability to process and make meaning of sounds. Child may clear the hearing test with no pathological evidences. In spite of having healthy hearing pattern child may have trouble in sounds especially in background of noises.
To a child with APD, “Tell me how the sofa and the couch and are alike” might sound like “Tell me how a car and loaf are like.”
Typically, a normal child’s brain consistently and instantly processes the auditory information as its received. But a child with APD faces a delay in processing of auditory information or sometimes the information to be processed get mixed up because of which can’t make sense of what he has heard.
Many conditions, including ADHD and autism, can affect a child’s ability to listen and understand what they hear. What makes APD different is that the problem lies with understanding the sounds of spoken language, not the meaning of what’s being said.
There are several kinds of auditory processing issues. The symptoms can range from mild to severe.
Auditory Discrimination:
The ability to differentiate sounds. For example the words thirty and thirteen may sound alike.
Auditory Figure-Ground Discrimination:
The ability to focus and filter out the important and relevant auditory information from the busy background. It would be like sitting at a party and not being able to hear the person next to you because there’s so much background chatter.
Auditory Memory:
The ability to recall what you’ve heard, either immediately or when you need it later.
Auditory Sequencing:
The ability to understand and recall the correct sequence of sounds and words. A child might hear the number 357 but write 735.
Children with APD usually have at least some of the following symptoms:
Find it hard to follow spoken directions, especially multi-step instructions.
Ask speakers to repeat what they’ve said, or saying, “huh?” or “what?”
Be easily distracted, especially by background noise or loud and sudden noises.
Have trouble with reading and spelling, which require the ability to process and interpret sounds.
Struggle with oral (word) math problems.
Find it hard to follow and maintain conversations.
Have poor musical ability.
Find it hard to learn songs or nursery rhymes.
Have trouble remembering details of what was read or heard .
Here are some quick key points to notice about the APD
Auditory Hypersensitivity:
Cries, scream or becomes angry at sudden noises.
Often breaks out with the noise of blender, train or any machine which is bearable normally.
Reacts emotionally with increase in noise levels.
Covers ear and hides in social situations.
Avoids everyday normal noises for example cutting, breaking,, grinding or washing machine noise.
Reacts strongly and aggressively to high pitched noises like whistles.
Can’t bear the cry of other babies or children.
Get stressed with metallic sounds.
Auditory Hyposensitivity:
Enjoys loud music.
Make loud noises in quiet settings.
Purposely creates loud noises for examples hitting steel glass to floor to enjoy its sound.
Craves for common noises such grinding machine etc.
Seems to be calmed by high pitched sounds.
What skills are affected by auditory processing disorder?
APD can present lifelong difficulties if it isn’t diagnosed and managed well in time. Here are some skills that are commonly affected:
Communication:
Children with APD may not speak clearly. They may drop the ends of words and syllables that aren’t emphasized. They might confuse similar sounds (free instead of three) long after their peers have learned to correct themselves.
Academics:
Kids with APD often have trouble developing reading, spelling and writing skills. Learning vowels and developing phonemic awareness—the building blocks for reading can be especially difficult. Kids with APD fail to understand and follow the spoken instructions especially if it comes to follow multiple commands spoken in once sentence for example plz find the third line in second paragraph on page number 3. Kids with APD tend to perform better in classes that don’t rely heavily on listening.
Social skills:
Kids with APD often finds it difficult to maintain conversations with peer group.This may be due to the confusion in understanding what is being said to them. They are often hesitated to initiate conversations as most of the time they are worried about the responses they have to produce to what is being said to them.