Auditory Processing Disorder happens when a child has difficulty analysing or comprehending the information that he hears. A child’s hearing may be perfectly fine, however, the auditory input received may be interpreted or processed incorrectly by the brain.
Child may experience difficulty with auditory processing skills in the area of phonological awareness, auditory discrimination, auditory memory, auditory sequencing, auditory blending, auditory figure-ground discrimination causing them to show signs and symptoms of:
Poor receptive language
- misinterpretation of questions
- confusion of similar sounds/ words heard
- frequent need for repetition
- over sensitivity to sounds/ noises
- inability to follow sequential instructions that have been given orally
- difficulty in spelling words that are dictated
- problem remembering names and places that are heard
- inability to select and attend to relevant auditory stimuli (frequently inattentive when stories are read and discussed)
- inability to gain any meaning or the complete meaning from material presented orally
Poor expressive language
- flat and monotonous voice
- poor in phonological skills
- difficulty with speech
- poor vocabulary and sentence structure
- poor in reading and spelling
- poor in oral comprehension
- slow to respond to questions presented orally
Other signs
- Leave out words and letters when asked to repeat sentences/ words
- identify one sound or word for another (substitute incorrect sound or word)
- confuse the sequence of sounds, words and steps in a task when presented verbally
- trouble differentiating one sound from another
- display avoidance behaviour during writing/ reading activities
- difficulty recognising a word when only parts of the words are given
*Although a multidisciplinary team approach is important in fully understanding the cluster of problems associated with Auditory Processing Disorder (APD), the diagnosis of APD can only be made by an audiologist.
Fix an appointment for your child to go for our Dynamic Diagnostic Assessment (DDA™) to identify your child’s learning and developmental strengths and weaknesses.
Bridge Learning specialised early intervention programmes to intervene in auditory processing disorder: