ASK A TEACHER

APD – Auditory Processing Disorder

with Nancy Downing

Q: My child has been diagnosed with auditory processing disorder (APD).    
Can you please help me understand this disorder?

A: Auditory processing is what happens when your brain recognizes and interprets
the sounds around you. Auditory processing disorder means that something is
adversely affecting the processing or interpretation of that information.

Someone with APD often does not recognize small differences between sounds in
words, even though the sounds themselves are loud and clear. An example might
be "Hand me a brush and a comb" may sound like "Hand me a comb and a brush."
It can even be understood by the child as "Hand me a bush and home."

Noisy environments or listening to complex information causes these types of
problems to occur at a higher rate.

The following are some characteristics of APD:

  • Have trouble paying attention to and remembering information presented orally
  • Have problems carrying out multi-step directions
  • Have poor listening skills
  • Need more time to process information
  • Have low academic performance
  • Have behavior problems
  • Have language difficulty (e.g., they confuse syllable sequences and have
    problems developing vocabulary and understanding language)
  • Have difficulty with reading, comprehension, spelling, and vocabulary

There are programs for APD that can help your child. Go to the Internet to see
what is in your area. Inform your child’s school of this diagnosis and see what
services can be provided in that environment. Your child’s teacher will also need
this information for teaching strategies.



Copyright © 2008 by Nancy Downing.  All rights reserved.
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Nancy has been an educator for 30 years and is currently a special education teacher.  
She is the former Center Director of LearningRx in Little Rock, Arkansas. She has
received local, state, and national recognition for her development of Downfeld
Phonics, a multi-sensory reading program.  Nancy also wrote curriculum for an
educational technology company.   

Nancy is a single mother of three children:  one with learning differences, one gifted,
and one who has to work for his grades.  Not only does she know what it is like to teach
all these different learning styles at school, but she has the experience of dealing with
all aspects of each twenty-four seven.  
Train a child in the way he should go,  
and when he is old he will not turn from it.

(Proverbs 22:6)