Does your child encounter difficulties at school?
If this is the case, especially if your child has had slow language development or repeated ear infections, he or she should first receive a basic, yet through hearing assessment. This assessment will allow the audiologist to determine the presence or absence of different kinds of problems which could affect your child's hearing sensitivity; for example, wax accumulation in the external auditory canal and/or middle ear infection or inner-ear problems (hearing loss). If the results confirm that the hearing capacity of your child is normal and yet, you observe that your child confuses some sounds during dictation, needs to have people frequently repeat what they say, etc., then the second step of the diagnostic process is to determine the presence or absence of auditory processing disorders (APD).
A child with APD can present a decrease in one or more of the following auditory processing abilities: decoding auditory information, listening in noisy environments, memorizing and organizing auditory information and, finally, understanding and analyzing vocal messages. For example, some children with APD may confuse similar sounding words (ex.: may think that you said "shoe" instead of "zoo") which, in turn, may affect his or her ability to learn to read and write. Other children will have the speaker often repeat information, especially if surrounded by noise. In the classroom, teachers will notice difficulties in understanding and following verbal instructions in the correct sequence, especially if these instructions are long and complicated.
Children with APD not only have difficulties in learning their native language, but learning a second language and comprehending mathematical problems can also be a challenge. Children with APD need to make constant efforts to listen. This situation makes it more difficult for them to take notes in class. Eventually, it is possible that some of these children with poor auditory processing abilities may tune out or encounter some difficulties in paying attention to the speaker. Consequently, a number of children with APD also have a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder with or without hyperactivity.