What is Auditory Processing?

Auditory Processing, like visual processing, can be difficult to diagnose. In fact, auditory processing most often goes hand in hand with visual processing disorder because they are both neurological disorders and the problems actually overlap in the areas of memory, discrimination, attention, and language. Most often, these disorders are treated simultaneously or if a child has one of the disorders but not the other he/she is treated with the same strategies that one might use for both.

Note that children with APD usually have normal hearing ability. However, they experience an inability to process verbal information and have a processing failure and do not process what is being said to them. Although they may be able to repeat back to you they may not understand anything you said to them.

What is Auditory Processing?
Simply put, Auditory Processing Disorder is the in ability to correctly process or interpret auditory information. Children with APD often do not recognize subtle differences between words, sounds, are unable to filter in noisy environments, are able to only concentrate on one auditory input at a time, and can be easily overstimulated or confused by many sounds because they don’t know what to focus on.

Symptoms:
* Have trouble paying attention to and remembering information presented orally
* Have problems carrying out multistep directions
* Have poor listening skills
* Need more time to process information
* Have low academic performance
* Have behavior problems
* Have language difficulty (e.g., they confuse syllable sequences and have problems developing vocabulary and understanding language)
* Have difficulty with reading, comprehension, spelling, and vocabulary