Auditory Processing Disorder
Auditory Processing refers to the skills associated with listening and comprehending. It is how easily and clearly sound reaches the part of the brain where it can be processed and made sense of. This includes skills such as
- Localizing sound (knowing where the sound is coming from)
- The ability to detect speech in the presence of background noise
- The ability to integrate or put together sound from both ears
- The ability to discriminate phonemes and blend them together.
Language processing refers to what we do with the information once it reaches the language area of the brain. This includes skills such as
- Categorizing words (which helps with learning new vocabulary)
- Making abstract or concrete inferences
- Summarizing information
As you can see, auditory processing and language processing are interrelated. If I can’t process sounds clearly I won’t be able to understand the message and if I can’t store new information I won’t remember what I heard.
A child with auditory and/or language processing disorders may struggle with learning how to read. They may be bright, but the school environment may make learning very challenging. Fortunately, there are research-based techniques that have been proven to improve auditory processing abilities. Early evaluations make a big difference in outcomes. We are able to screen children as young as 31/2 to identify children at risk and begin remediation.