What is Auditory Processing Disorder?
We don’t just hear with our ears; the brain is where we process sounds and make sense of them.
Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) is a term used for a condition where the ears process sound normally, but the brain is not able to accurately or quickly process the information.
APD can affect both children and adults.
You can be born with APD or brain injury, disease or even as a part of the aging process.
Signs that you or your child may have APD:
- Struggling at school or work
- Difficulty following complex instructions
- Mishearing what people say
- Struggling to remember verbal instructions
- Being overwhelmed by complex listening environments
- Sensitivity to loud sounds
- Slowness in processing spoken information
- Poor listening skills
- Needing the TV/Radio turned up
- Difficulty understanding in the presence of other sounds
- Insensitivity to tone of voice or other nuances of speech
Auditory Processing Assessments
When we assess for Auditory Processing Disorders, we complete a series of tests each of which looks at a different way we process sound. We assess how the brain combines information from each ear, how well the brain distinguishes different patterns in sound, how the brain orders and remembers sound and how well the brain focuses on speech in background noise.
Treating Auditory Processing Disorder
Auditory Training
- We offer a 12-week auditory training program. This is typically one 1-hour session per week with Sara our Audiologist who also has a Bachelor of Speech and Language Therapy.
- During these sessions we work through listening activities which target, auditory memory, identifying individual speech sounds, putting speech sounds together to form words and learning to tolerate and hear better in background noise.
- This training program can be beneficial for anyone who has difficulty hearing and following conversations. This includes people who have hearing loss and hearing aids, people who have had a head injury and adults or children who have APD.
Remote Microphone/Amplification
- People with APD can also benefit from amplification through either hearing aids and/or a remote microphone system.
- A remote microphone is a microphone that is either worn by another person, placed on a table between multiple people or pointed in the direction of the person speaking. It then sends the sound directly to the user’s ears.
- This helps with auditory processing disorder by providing a short-term benefit in making listening easier in an immediate setting, as well as a long-term benefit in changing and strengthening neural pathways to improve auditory skills.
- Our audiologist Sara will discuss the different options with you.