An Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) evaluation ideally should involve a multidisciplinary assessment of your child's language, learning and hearing function. If you suspect your child has APD we recommend that they undergo the following 3 evaluations: Audiologic, speech and language and psycho-educational. This is because APD rarely occurs in isolation. Often children with APD have other language, learning and/or attention difficulties. Our Audiologist will do a thorough assessment which involves a battery of tests and can take 2-3 visits depending on your child's attention span. We also have a speech language pathologist who can determine if any of your child's difficulties are related to language processing difficulties. A comprehensive educational report will then be provided so that you can take this to your child's school for implementation. What is an Auditory Processing Disorder (APD)? Auditory Processing (also called Central Auditory Processing) refers to the means by which we make sense of what we hear. 'Auditory Processing Disorders' refers to the abnormal interaction of hearing, neural transmission and the brain's ability to make sense of sound. People with auditory processing disorders may indeed have normal hearing, but they have difficulty understanding auditory information. This may be apparent by difficulty understanding speech in the presence in noise, problems following multi-step directions, and difficulty with phonics or reading comprehension, among other things. Parents, educators, physicians, speech-language pathologists and others realize the role that auditory processing plays in a child's ability to learn, leading to an increase in referrals to audiologists with expertise in this area. Proper diagnosis can be made only after the completion of a battery of audiometric tests, administered by an audiologist. Individualized remediation programs are available to help strengthen auditory processing skills in diagnosed children and adults. Some of the common behavioral characteristics often noted in children with APD are as follows: Difficulty hearing in noisy situations Difficulty following multi-step directions Difficulty with reading and/or spelling Difficulty remembering spoken information Being easily distracted by other sounds in the environment Difficulty with organizational skills Difficulty in directing, sustaining, or dividing attention Some of the characteristics listed above are also found in other disorders such as Attention Deficit Disorder, Language Disorder, Learning Disorder etc. It is very important that a proper diagnoses of APD is made so that appropriate management strategies can be implemented. Diagnoses of APD should not be made based on results of a single test. Rather a battery of tests should be administered by a qualified audiologist in a sound booth before areas of weakness in auditory processing can be identified. If you would like further information about APD please call us at 717-627-4327. What treatments are available for auditory processing difficulty? Much research is still needed to understand APD problems, related disorders, and the best intervention for each child or adult. Several strategies are available to help children with auditory processing difficulties. Some of these are commercially available, but have not been fully studied. Any strategy selected should be used under the guidance of a team of professionals, and the effectiveness of the strategy needs to be evaluated. Researchers are currently studying a variety of approaches to treatment. Several strategies you may hear about include: Auditory trainers are electronic devices that allow a person to focus attention on a speaker and reduce the interference of background noise. They are often used in classrooms, where the teacher wears a microphone to transmit sound and the child wears a headset to receive the sound. Children who wear hearing aids can use them in addition to the auditory trainer. Environmental modifications such as classroom acoustics, placement, and seating may help. An audiologist may suggest ways to improve the listening environment, and he or she will be able to monitor any changes in hearing status. Exercises to improve language-building skills can increase the ability to learn new words and increase a child's language base. Auditory memory enhancement, a procedure that reduces detailed information to a more basic representation, may help. Also, informal auditory training techniques can be used by teachers and therapists to address specific difficulties. Practitioners may promote auditory integration training as a way to retrain the auditory system and decrease hearing distortion. However, current research has not proven the benefits of this treatment. Additional Links for APD National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders Council for Exceptional Children Information Center on Disabilities and Gifted Education. Aritcle by Mignon M. Schminky and Jane A. Baran Department of Communication Disorders University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts	A&E Audiology, Inc. Lititz 1555 Highlands Dr. Suite 101 Lititz, Pa 17543 Phone: 717.627.HEAR (4327) Fax: 717.627.2690 A&E Audiology, Inc. Willow Street 226 Willow Valley Lakes Dr. Suite D Willow Street, PA 17584 Phone: 717.464.2144 Fax: 717.464.4255
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