Auditory Processing: Do You Hear What I Hear? (Part 2)

In Part 1 of this series I explained what auditory processing is and how you can help your child improve this necessary skill for learning.

Today, I want to go a step further and get into what an actual Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) looks like. 

What is an APD?

An APD, also called Central Auditory Processing Disorder, can manifest itself in a variety of ways. These can include difficulty understanding speech in noisy environments, trouble with reading, spelling, and sound discrimination. A disorder is a recurrent problem that interferes with daily functioning. 

"The five main problem areas that can affect both home and school activities in kids with APD are:

1. Auditory Figure-Ground Problems: when a child can't pay attention if there's noise in the background. Noisy, low-structured classrooms could be very frustrating.
2. Auditory Memory Problems: when a child has difficulty remembering information such as directions, lists, or study materials. It can be immediate ("I can't remember it now") and/or delayed ("I can't remember it when I need it for later").
3. Auditory Discrimination Problems: when a child has difficulty hearing the difference between words or sounds that are similar (COAT/BOAT or CH/SH). This can affect following directions, and reading, spelling, and writing skills, among others.
4. Auditory Attention Problems: when a child can't stay focused on listening long enough to complete a task or requirement (such as listening to a lecture in school). Kids with CAPD often have trouble maintaining attention, although health, motivation, and attitude also can play a role.
5. Auditory Cohesion Problems: 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 1 through 4 above) are intact." -Excerpt from KidsHealth.org

An actual APD can only be diagnosed by an audiologist no matter how many symptoms a child has. Find a professional in your area.

"To diagnose APD, the audiologist will administer a series of tests in a sound-treated room. These tests require listeners to attend to a variety of signals and to respond to them via repetition, pushing a button, or in some other way. Other tests that measure the auditory system's physiologic responses to sound may also be administered. Most of the tests of APD require that a child be at least 7 or 8 years of age because the variability in brain function is so marked in younger children that test interpretation may not be possible." -ASHA

Treatment

It is important to remember that treatment is very individualized and no one treatment can work for every child. Here are some examples of the types of treatment available:

Auditory Integration Training 

Electronic Auditory Stimulation Effect 

LiPS Program 

Forbrain Headphones (to retrain the way you process information)

Auditory Processing: Do You Hear What I Hear? (Part 1)

What is it?

Auditory processing is recognizing, interpreting, remembering, and manipulating sounds. These are important skills needed for reading and often referred to as phonological processing, phonemic awareness, and phonics. Perhaps you've heard a child say:

“I can’t tell what word rhymes with toy.” 

“I don’t know the first sound in the word dog." 

“I can’t tell you what sound the letter /m/ makes.”

These are indications of difficulty with auditory processing. There are ways to help your child improve these skills, even with simple games at home. These are great things to do with your preschooler, too!

How can I help my child?

An important thing to remember when trying to improve your child's auditory processing skills is to keep the sessions fun and brief. Take a break even if you feel like you just started, especially if your child is feeling frustrated.

Simple games such as this song that teaches sound isolation to the tune of "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" make a great starting place.

"What's the sound that starts these words: turtle, time, and teeth?
(Wait for a response from the child - /t/.) /t/ is the sound that starts these words: turtle, time, and teeth.
With a /t/, /t/, here and a /t/, /t/, there, Here a /t/, there a /t/, everywhere a /t/, /t/. /t/ is the sound that starts these words: turtle, time, and teeth..."

Here are some free colored rhyming cards to download. More activities to do at home can be found on this Pinterest board, dedicated to Phonemic Awareness.

Here's a free app for the iphone with 566 images used for phoneme awareness. More apps (to purchase), such as Auditory Memory Ride, can be found at the Virtual Speech Center.

If you've got $445 to spend check out this LiPS Kit to get some serious practice for auditory processing skills!

Also, be sure to check with your child’s teacher to make sure the school’s reading program or your homeschool curriculum teaches phonological, phonemic awareness and phonics skills.

Does your child seem to have a major difficulty in this area? Learn how to get a diagnosis and help for an auditory processing disorder in Part 2 of this series.

Thanks to Reading Rockets, The Access Center, and LD Online for information on auditory processing used in this post.

Reading Approach Designed for Dyslexia!

All About Reading is a program created from the determination of Marie Rippel to help her 9 year old dyslexic son learn to read. It contains the key components to reading:

• phonological awareness

• phonics/decoding

• fluency

• vocabulary

• comprehension

Using a multisensory approach this program capitalizes on the child's strongest learning style while using the other senses also. It is also mastery-based to be sure the child thoroughly learns each important component. Learn more about All About Reading here.

Read Cathy Duffy's review on All About Reading. It's one of her 101 top picks!

The Kids' Schooling, Preschool and Kindergarten

Uno's readers from school

Uno

Uno is really making progress in Kindergarten. His teacher was surprised at how well he did when she tested him again. He comes home singing all kinds of learning songs which, I assume, he is hearing at school. (counting by 5's and 10's, for instance.) He also seems to love science and always has something to say about catching ladybugs or planting a flower at school. About the only thing he cannot do yet is write a story, but, hey, he's only in Kindergarten!

The girls really caught onto this one.

The most exciting thing to me is that Uno is now reading! His teacher sent home some early readers and he read the first one through very well. I think we are now on book 3. Reading to the children is part of our evening routine, and sometimes Josh lets Uno read some easy words, too. When the children first arrived they could not sit still long enough for us to read a book to them. Now, they will choose to sit quite often throughout the day and "read" books!

...and on the back of the cards are the symbols.

Dos

The days have been so busy and I've been so tired that I haven't been as consistent with the girls' home schooling. I think I am supposed to have Dos enrolled in Headstart but they did not have an opening. She was disappointed because she wants to go to school like her brother. I plan to get her registered in May, though.

a homemade Montessori "sandpaper letters"

At this point, I am taking it slowly with her so she can master the concept of what the numbers and letters mean, as opposed to just teaching them the symbols. For instance, I am teaching the sounds of the letters of the alphabet, not the names yet. Although, for a while I taught them the A beka chart "A says a a apple, etc."

In Math, I am teaching what zero, one, two, and three mean instead of focusing on the symbols (0,1,2,3). I tried starting out that way actually, using both the symbol and quantity and they had no idea what I was talking about, so I started over with a different approach. I'm using a little bit of the Montessori method but not totally.

So far, Dos knows almost all of her colors except she usually mixes up yellow and blue. We play the memory matching game with color flash cards. She understands the quantities of zero, one, two, three, and four. I tried some pre-handwriting readiness worksheets but she doesn't seem to have the motor skills to write yet. I'm using the Montessori sandpaper letters, focusing on lower case only. It has been weeks since I went over the sounds of the letters with her but I just tested her and she still remembers 13 of the sounds! I had only gone over it a few days, maybe a week. I'm impressed.

girls still confused on this one

Tres

I am doing the same thing with Tres as I am with Dos but a little slower since she isn't quite getting it as fast.  She knows the names of the colors but seems to only recognize the color orange. She does, however, know which ones match. As far as quantities go, she understands zero, one, and two so far. I'll have to test her to  see which sounds she knows but often I'll see her point to a letter and say "horse!" (the letter h) or "apple" (the letter a). *I just tested her and she knew 7 of the sounds!

They love this matching game!

I want to work with the girls more, especially since I just tested them and they remembered so much after so many weeks!  Hopefully, I'll be able to work with all three of them this summer and get Uno caught up if he is still behind and give the girls a good foundation with their understanding of letters and numbers.