Auditory Processing Disorder Among Children: What Does it Look Like?

 

Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) is a neuro-developmental disorder that affects how the brain processes, interprets and responds to sounds. 

Symptoms typically impair a person's ability to focus on one sound in a crowded environment and have trouble with social interactions.

This article will discuss how ADP looks like among children.

Difficulty in Recognizing Similar Words

A few things that ADP develop are difficulty recognizing words that sound alike, such as "knock" and "know," problem with listening comprehension (repeating what was said) and answering questions such as "what did the teacher say?" or "what happened next?" without taking notes.

Children will often need time to respond to questions, but the more quickly they answer the first time you ask —the less likely they have an APD.

ADP isn’t an Impairment

ADP isn’t a hearing impairment; the child's ears are fine, and they hear well. It isn't easy to process what they hear. If they have a hearing problem, they’ll have an ADP as well. ADP can be associated with ADHD or Autism Spectrum Disorders, and it is much more common in boys than girls.

Issues they DON’T face

Children with Auditory Processing Disorder often do not demonstrate the following behaviours: not paying attention in class, getting in trouble for talking out of turn, being told to speak up because "I can't hear you," avoiding group projects because of noise and distraction, having issues making friends at school due to sensory issues or intolerance to background noise.

They don't always have the typical behaviours or test results that would lead a person to make this diagnosis. Audiologists and Doctors of Audiology are trained to look for these signs so they can make the diagnosis.

ADP Also Affects Reasoning and Other Related Skills

ADP is not just an issue with language processing. It also affects reasoning, listening skills, auditory memory, attention and learning in general. 

Children with ADP often hear very well; their auditory memory is fine; they have trouble processing what they hear.

They can understand the gist of spoken language but struggle with details or remembering what they heard or read later. In short - it's a complex disorder to describe or explain.

Get Professional Home Healthcare services.

If you think your children might’ve APD, you can reach out to EmbassyHome Healthcare. Their highly qualified speech therapists work with audiologists to enhance auditory deficit and make verbal and speech cues legible.

Contact them to book a consultation!