The audiologist might also recommend that your child uses a personal remote microphone or sound field amplification system.

Your audiologist might suggest strategies or training programs for your child. In some cases, intervention can improve listening ability to a typical level. With the right intervention and support, children with auditory processing disorder (APD) can improve their ability to listen in the classroom and other noisy environments. Support and treatment for auditory processing disorder Early treatment gives children with APD the best opportunity to improve their listening and get support for learning at school. When APD is diagnosed early, children can get treatment early too. If you think your child might have signs of APD, it’s best to see your GP as soon as possible. And your child might see a speech pathologist, who can assess your child’s ability to identify sounds, process sounds for learning language, and use sound skills for reading. Your child might also be referred to a psychologist to rule out other conditions like a learning difficulty or an intellectual disability.

You can ask your audiologist for more information about the tests before your child has them. The audiologist uses equipment to change the words and sounds so they’re harder to understand – for example, the equipment might add background noise or play words or sounds at the same time. This includes diagnostic hearing tests for hearing loss and auditory processing tests.Īn auditory processing test involves several short tests like listening to and repeating words and sounds back to the audiologist. If the audiologist thinks the problem might be APD, they’ll do an auditory processing assessment. The GP or paediatrican might refer your child to an audiologist to test your child’s hearing. It’s a good idea to first see your GP or paediatrician for advice if you’ve noticed any of the signs or symptoms of APD, or if your child’s teacher has noticed your child is having trouble listening at school. Diagnosis and assessment of auditory processing disorderĪuditory processing disorder (APD) is usually diagnosed once children start school. This means that problems with learning, listening and communication, reading and writing can be signs of APD. remembering to say the beginning or end sounds of words when they’re reading.telling the difference between letters that sound similar, like ‘k’ and ‘g’, or ‘t’ and ‘d’.staying focused – for example, they might be easily distracted.listening and hearing, especially if there’s a lot of background noise and distractions.If a child has auditory processing disorder (APD), you might notice that they have difficulties with: Signs and symptoms of auditory processing disorder It’s estimated that APD affects around 2-5% of school-age children.ĪPD is also called central auditory processing disorder (CAPD). That’s because the difficulties it causes can look like the signs of deafness or hearing loss, intellectual disability, a language problem, a learning difficulty, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). As a result, APD c an affect children’s learning, language and reading.ĪPD can be hard to diagnose. And this means it can be hard for children with APD to listen properly when there’s background noise or the sound is muffled. These difficulties make it hard for children with APD to work out what a sound is, where the sound came from and when the sound happened. They might also be unusually sensitive to sounds. Children with APD might have normal hearing, but have difficulty recognising and interpreting the sounds they hear. Auditory processing disorder (APD) is a problem with the way your hearing and brain work together to understand sound.

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