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What is APD?

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Auditory processing disorder (APD), also known as Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD), refers to a condition that impacts the brain’s ability to filter and interpret sounds. People with APD have normal hearing abilities, but their brains have difficulty receiving and organizing sound. 3%–5% of school-aged children suffer from auditory processing disorder. (Nagao, 2016). Auditory processing disorder is often misdiagnosed because many of its symptoms are similar to those found in other disorders like speech delays, learning disabilities, behavioral problems and ADHD. (Lucker, 2020).

Why Education is Important

The symptoms of APD can impact listening and communication skills, which may make academic success difficult to achieve. It is important to raise awareness as, although there's no known cure for APD, there are different strategies that may help with listening and also improve the development of the auditory pathway over time, especially when started at younger age. Understanding auditory processing disorder is crucial for teachers, doctors, and parents as this disorder makes learning difficult for the child. By understanding the underlying issue, we are able to create a more accessible environment for the student to learn and thrive.

Comprehension of speech

“The act of processing speech is very complex and involves the engagement of auditory, cognitive, and language mechanisms, often simultaneously”. (Medwetsky, 2011). Normal communication depends on comprehension of speech. Compresenion of speech depends on a complex auditory signal that is made up of frequency and amplitude information that varies rapidly over brief intervals. This complex signal requires extensive encoding and decoding throughout multiple regions of the auditory system and cognitive effort throughout the cortex to process the sounds of speech into a message in real time. Individuals with auditory processing disorder have difficulty encoding and decoding the signals and therefore are unable to process the sounds into speech as quickly, as people without an auditory processing disorder. (Celesia, 2013).

Types of Auditory Processing Disorder

There are four basic skills involved in auditory processing, and kids who have these problems may be weak in one or more of them. Individuals with auditory processing disorder have difficulties with auditory discrimianation, which is the ability to notice and distinguish between distinct and separate sounds. (Nagao, 2016). The second skill that children with APD struggle with is figure-to-ground discrimination, whicn is the ability to differentiate sounds from background noise, to follow verbal instructions or pick out one voice from the auditory clutter. The third basic skill is auditory memory. Individuals with APD have difficulty remembering short-term and long-term things they hear, unless they are written down. The last basic skill is auditory sequencing. A child that has trouble with auditory sequencing will mix up numbers with the same digits in different order and may switch the sequence of sounds in a word (Celsia, 2013).

Is APD a developmental disorder? 

Auditory processing difficulties are often identified in other developmental disorders. A study was done to determine if the behavioral characteristics of children with APD is similar to those of children with other developmental disorders. The study concluded that children diagnosed with APD perform equally to children diagnosed with SLI, dyslexia, ADHD, and LD on tests of intelligence, memory or attention, and language tests. “The high degree of interconnectedness between brain regions means that cognitive ‘modules’ such as language or memory do not develop independently, segregated from each other, but instead they emerge progressively from complex and dynamic processes” (Lucker, 2020).
 

Works Cited

Celesia, Gastone G. “Disorders of Peripheral and Central Auditory Processing.” Handbook of Clinical Neurophysiology, Elsevier, vol. 10, (Https://www.sciencedirect.com/Science/Article/Pii/B9780702053108099920), 2013, p. iv.

Lucker, Dr. Jay. “Understanding Auditory Processing Disorders in Children.” Same or Different: The Overlap Between Children With Auditory Processing Disorders and Children With Other Developmental Disorders: A Systematic Review, vol. 39, no. 1, 2020, pp. 1–19., doi:10.52305/jzxg8941.

Medwetsky, Tom. “Central Auditory Processing Disorder.” American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, www.asha.org/practice-portal/clinical-topics/central-auditory-processing-disorder/#collapse_9.

Nagao, K., Riegner, T., Padilla, J., Greenwood, L. A., Loson, J., Zavala, S., & Morlet, T. (2016). Prevalence of Auditory Processing Disorder in School-Aged Children in the Mid-Atlantic Region. Journal of the American Academy of Audiology, 27(9), 691–700. https://doi.org/10.3766/jaaa.15020