Auditory Processing Improvement (Part 2) - 2008-12-27
What Are the Problem Areas for Kids With APD?
Here are the five main problem areas that can affect both home and school activities in children with APD.
1. Auditory Figure-Ground Problems: This is when the child can't pay attention when there's noise in the background. Noisy, low-structured classrooms could be very frustrating to this child.
2. Auditory Memory Problems: This is when the child has difficulty remembering information such as directions, lists, or study materials. It can be immediate (i.e., "I can't remember it now") and/or delayed (i.e., "I can't remember it when I need it for later").
3. Auditory Discrimination Problems: This is when the child has difficulty hearing the difference between sounds or words that are similar (COAT/BOAT or CH/SH). This problem can affect following directions, reading, spelling, and writing skills, among others.
4. Auditory Attention Problems: This is when the child can't maintain focus for listening long enough to complete a task or requirement (such as listening to a lecture in school). Although health, motivation, and attitude may also affect attention, among other factors, a child with CAPD cannot (not will not) maintain attention.
5. Auditory Cohesion Problems: This is when higher-level listening tasks are difficult. Auditory cohesion skills - drawing inferences from conversations, understanding riddles, or comprehending verbal math problems - require heightened auditory processing and language levels. They develop best when all the other skills (levels one through four above) are intact.
If your child has APD, there are strategies that can be used at home and school to alleviate some of the problem behaviors associated with APD.
How Can I Help My Child?
Difficulty with following directions is possibly the single most common complaint about children with APD. Some of things you can do that may help:
• Reduce background noise.
• Have your child look at you when you're speaking.
• Use simple, expressive sentences.
• Speak at a slightly slower rate and at a mildly increased volume.
• Ask your child to repeat the directions back to you aloud and to keep repeating them aloud (or to himself or herself) until the directions are completed. Make certain your child understands the directions and isn't just copying your words. You can be more certain of this if your child is able to rephrase the directions. For example, "Take the garbage to the side of the house," may be restated as, "You want me to take the garbage to the side of the house, not to the front."
For directions that are to be completed at a later time, writing notes, wearing a watch, and maintaining a household routine also help. General organization and scheduling also seem to be beneficial for many children with APD.
It's especially important to teach your child to be responsible and actively involved in his or her own success. Your child can be encouraged to notice noisy environments, for example, and move to quieter places when listening is necessary.
These other home strategies may also be helpful:
• Provide your child with a quiet study place (not the kitchen table).
• Maintain a peaceful, organized lifestyle.
• Encourage good eating and sleeping habits.
• Assign regular and realistic chores, including keeping a neat room and desk.
• Begin an auditory processing improvement program.
These are all very important goals. Your modeling of these behaviors goes far toward encouraging them in your child.
What treatments are available for APD?
Much research is still needed to understand Auditory Processing Disorder problems, related disorders, and the best intervention for each child or adult.
The Listening Program is an auditory therapy program that is easy to do at home, is enjoyable, and also very successful in strengthening auditory and related abilities. The Listening Program is a program that can benefit anyone, but specifically individuals who have difficulties in the areas of auditory perception, processing, and memory.
The Listening Program was designed to help balance, strengthen, and/or restore our ability to listen to and process sounds across the full auditory spectrum, from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. This can result in marked improvements across the human continuum, from academic performance to emotional balance.
Using The Listening Program actually exercises and tones the tiny muscles in the ear and helps build stronger multi-sensory pathways in the brain. The brain receives especially rich auditory stimulation, and its ability to process sound improves.
One of the most important things that both parents and teachers can do is to realize that APD is real. Symptoms and behaviors are not within the child's control. What is within the child's control is recognizing the problems associated with APD and applying the strategies recommended both at home and school.
A positive, realistic attitude and healthy self-esteem in a child with APD can work wonders. Kids with APD can go on to be just as successful as other classmates. Although some children do, however, grow up to be adults with APD, with coping strategies and by using techniques taught to them in speech therapy, they can be very successful adults.
Much of this information has been provided by Kids Health.
Call Don Harris, a Certified TLP Provider and Licensed Speech Pathologist, today at 509-833-3264 or Contact Us Online to further discuss the many ways The Listening Programs and the TLP Extension CDs will benefit you and your family.
Don Harris, MS, CCC-SLP
Certified Speech Language Pathologist
www.SpeechAndListening.com
