LEARNING INTERFERENCES: UNDERSTANDING THEN PLANNINg

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An auditory processing disorder can cause difficulties with understanding in listening. It is not an indication of hearing loss or impairment, but rather a disruption to how the brain makes sense of sounds, including language. Kids with APDs are often labeled poor listeners at home and at school. This is because listening comprehension skills and memory for learning auditory information may both be impaired. 

Auditory processing disorders, also called central auditory processing disorders, range in severity and no two individuals will experience the same set of symptoms.

An individual may have trouble following conversations, particularly when there are multiple and overlapping voices. 

They may have problems hearing the ends of words or distinguishing between words which sound similar. 

Students with an auditory processing disorder can particularly struggle in the classroom, where background noise and echoes make it harder to focus on what the teacher is saying.
 

It may also be tricky for kids with an APD to follow directions provided aurally. 

Parents and teachers might notice differences in speech production, particularly the pronunciation of certain sounds and placement of stress. 

As phonological awareness is central to early reading, decoding skills can additionally be impacted.

There are a number of approaches that can help an individual with an auditory processing disorder improve his or her confidence and skill.
 

Speech therapy assists with the perception of sounds, electronic devices can enhance and clarify audio signals, and self-monitoring strategies enable a learner to be pro-active about auditory distractors in his or her environment.

One of the most common classroom-based accommodations is supplementing auditory stimuli with visuals. For example, teachers may include a text-based version of a prompt.

Multi-sensory learning can also be a powerful technique for an APD.

Touch-type Read and Spell is an Orton-Gillingham based typing program that has been used to help kids with an auditory processing disorder, ADHD and/or dyslexia learn keyboarding and familiarize themselves with English sounds.

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Words appear on screen, are played aloud and then typed, which combines visual, auditory and kinetic stimuli to reinforce language through a phonics-based curriculum.

Some students with APDs are overly quiet. Staying quiet is a way of preventing any embarrassment an individual might feel as a result of giving an answer that shows he or she has not understood the question. Sometimes students avoid speaking because they don’t want to call attention to themselves and/or have problems with speech production. Over time, not engaging in speech with others can have serious social and emotional consequences. It can also make it harder for parents and teachers to identify the disorder, given there’s less evidence of comprehension problems.

A student with an APD may respond in a way that shows he or she has only partially understood what has been said. It could also be that the response is completely unexpected given the student, the speaker, and the question. Some individuals may engage in attention seeking behavior at school in an attempt to distract teachers and classmates from listening problems – this is even more common when an APD and ADHD co-present.

Individual with an auditory processing disorder may respond differently depending on the noise levels in their environment. You may find comprehension is improved in quiet, distraction-free spaces compared to environments with a lot of background noise, echoes or overlapping speakers. Loud environments can also provoke strong emotional responses in kids with an APD, including frustration, anger, and anxiety as a result of impaired comprehension.

Note noise sensitivity issues are often seen in dyspraxia and autism. However, dyspraxia and auditory processing disorder, and autism and auditory processing disorder can also co-present.

Before an individual can read, most task instructions are provided by parents and teachers aurally. This can be problematic because kids with an APD have a harder time understanding and remembering multi-step instructions, particularly if they are not repeated multiple times. The tragedy for students with a learning difficulty or disorder is they may be told they are not paying attention or deliberately disobeying the rules, when in reality they fail to follow instructions due to listening comprehension deficits.

 Learn more about building confidence in individuals with specific needs.

Individuals with an APD often have problems with non-standard speech sounds, including accents which are not familiar to them. That’s because regional accents in the student’s native tongue may vary in sounds, phoneme-length, stress, intonation and vocabulary. Individuals who speak with a foreign accent or speech impediment may be equally problematic for kids with an auditory processing disorder to understand.

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