Spectrum Center Valerie Dejean Tuxedo Park, NY 1-877-4AUTKID

CENTRAL AUDITORY PROCESSING by Valerie Dejean Central auditory processing disorders are described as the:  "Inability to attend to, discriminate, recognize, and comprehend information that is presented through the auditory channel, in spite of normal hearing and intelligence."  Auditory processing provide the foundation for learning language and for learning language based academic skills such as reading, spelling and writing.  When auditory processing abilities are not well developed an individual is at risk for learning disabilities. and in more severe cases severe speech and language delays.    Central Auditory Processing Disorder: Symptoms of CAP  Children with this disorder can have difficulty following multi-step verbal directions.  They may mishear and therefore misunderstand what is said to them.  For example a command such as "Put the dishes in the sink and then go to the bathroom" may end up with dishes in the bathroom. A question such as "How old are you?" may be heard as "How are you"? These children may say "what" or "huh" frequently.

They often need directions repeated. Their responses to verbal information may also be delayed and at times absent.

They may not understand jokes and

 may have trouble finding the words to express themselves verbally or on paper.

In more severe cases speech and language may be delayed as these children are unable to quickly discriminate and attach meaning to the words they hear spoken to them.

They can mispronounce words because they have misheard them.

Social skills can be affected as they are not processing auditory information at a sufficient speed to respond promptly in two way verbal exchanges.

Learning to read phonetically is often difficult because it is dependent on auditory decoding and synthesizing and manipulation.

Spelling can be equally challenged as they do not hear the words accurately and there for are unable to reproduce them.

Often reading comprehension is impaired because they are working so hard to decode what they have read that there is no room left for understanding. Although these children may learn to read, they may never do it for pleasure.

Classes that are dependent on language and reading skills such as social studies, English and foreign language may be very difficult.

Even subjects such as math and science which in the early grades may have been easier becomes more challenging as the subjects become increasingly language based.

By the time these children enter forth grade, the majority of their lesson are presented orally.

By middle school they must learn to "tune into" verbal directions from many different teacher. They often start to day dream and tune out as their auditory system is simply overloaded. Class size also becomes larger so there is much more background competing noise which makes listening increasingly difficult.