Some might think Auditory Processing is just the ability to take sound in through the ears and understand it. Auditory Processing is really much bigger than that and often goes unnoticed or misdiagnosed as something bigger like ADD or Dyslexia. With perfect ears and hearing, Auditory Processing weakness can affect many issues with language, sound and response. As a matter of fact, children with APD have often had additional hearing tests, because the parents wonder if they cannot hear them well. Yet, the hearing level is normal.

Below is a list or AP Types and the quirky behaviors they manifest.

AUDITORY ORDERING OR SEQUENCING

Children with a weakened sequencing ability will often store and recall information out of order. For example, syllables might be out of order causing the child to say aminal for animal or ephelant for elephant. Numbers might come out of order. For example 65 as 56. Steps of instructions might be remembered and recalled out of order or with dropped steps. These children will struggle with speech, reading and math.

AUDITORY INTEGRATION

Children with this deficit have problems understanding words as a whole. They have problems with the right side of the brain communicating with the left to decode language. They struggle to understand the meaning of a word once it is sounded out. They struggle to combine information. These children usually have to see an example of what they should be doing before they begin. They often wait for others to start first.

AUDITORY DISCRIMINATION OR DECODING

Phonemes are the smallest part of sounds in language. Auditory Discrimination Deficit is the inability to hear subtle differences in phoneme sounds such as the words duck and buck or fifty and fifteen. They process information slowly and often don’t hear the differences in tones of voices. Therefore, they misread the speakers emotion. These children will struggle with social situations, poor spelling, grammar and reading skills.

AUDITORY FIGURE-GROUND DISCRIMINATION

A deficit in this area will cause the brain to struggle separating out the sounds that are important from the other sounds in a room. For example, when a child is trying to listen to someone speaking in a noisy room. They fail to pick up the instructions or conversations in a classroom or party. They will appear withdrawn as they start to avoid situations that involve a lot of background noise or large groups of people. They will not process and retain the information they are supposed to be hearing.

AUDITORY OUTPUT OR ORGANIZATIONAL DEFICIT

Some children with APD have speech articulation problems. While articulation is really a speech skill, APD can be a major contributor to an articulation problem. Children with APD might say syllables or words out of order and confuse similar sounds, like ‘f’ and ‘s’. They may also speak or sing monotone, with little or no inflection or emotion in their voice.

AUDITORY ASSOCIATIVE DEFICIT

These children hear sounds and their order just fine, but struggle to connect it to meaning. They can repeat a long word or a set of instructions verbatim, but not understand what they heard. Mom and Dad might say in frustration “What did I say?”. The child can repeat what they said, but still not act upon it because they are catching little of what was meant or instructed.

AUDITORY PROSODIC DEFICIT

Children with this deficit usually speak in a monotone way and struggle with music skills. They don’t hear modulation in voice, tones and rhythm and therefore do not catch the emotion in what they hear. They usually end up with social problems because they can’t hear the sarcasm in someone’s voice and misread the interaction with peers. They tend to get upset when Mom or Dad joke with them and seem very serious.

SHORT TERM MEMORY ALSO CONTRIBUTES

Short term memory also plays a part in Auditory Processing. Short term memory is used to store and recall sounds and words. If there is a weakness in the connection between the language processing part of the brain and memory, it will contribute to APD, reading struggles, and problems following steps of instructions. These children will have a hard time recalling information they just learned, like a word or letter sound they just learned on a previous page.

Download the List

Here is the list of Auditory Processing Types in a downloadable format. Now even though we focus on children, these apply to adults too. Email or post on our Facebook and let us know how it’s going. We love to hear all of the success stories when weaknesses become strengths and how it improves lives.