Did you know that your hearing health is an important measure of your overall wellness? Research shows that hearing loss can lead to a host of other health problems, such as depression, falls, and even dementia. Would you be interested in some case studies of children with auditory processing problems learning to read through TVP? Try the story of Gabriel, an American 3rd grader who conquered years of guessing with the help of trainertext and his awesome mom: The Miracle of Gabriel. Prominent names include: The Listening Program, AIT, and Johansen. The academic community is split on the effectiveness of these, though some studies have shown significant improvement ( see this article in Ear and Hearing ). Auditory integration therapies, which use different frequencies of sound to try to correct the weak auditory processing pathway.Personal FM systems, which mic the teacher and help block background noise for a child.Sitting at the front of the classroom, to block ambient noise more easily.It is just about the worst learning environment for their brain! Commonly prescribed accommodations include: One of the biggest challenges facing schoolchildren with APD is how to hear effectively in a noisy classroom. Finding other strategies to help in the classroom TVP uses engaging visual character images, like the Newt Playing the Flute, to represent each of the phonics sounds in our language.Īfter 2-4 months of daily practice sessions sounding words out using these cues, children move on to decoding automatically, without needing the image cues. It’s called trainertext visual phonics (TVP), and it is the method used in the Easyread System for struggling readers. But there is a way to harness the visual strength to activate that weak auditory pathway. Using visual cues in the right way to teach reading and spellingĪn over-reliance on the visual can lead down a dangerous path. Without any decoding ability, reading hits a plateau. But by age 7 or so, everything starts to crumble as there are too many words to commit to memory. This may work for the first year or two of education. They never really tackle decoding in the early years. Because hearing the different phonics sounds is challenging, many children with APD will just sight-memorize whole words. But an overreliance on the visual can lead them down the wrong path when learning to read. It is a natural – and effective – strategy in verbal conversation. Most children with APD tend to compensate for the auditory weakness by closely observing visual cues. The danger of over-relying on visual cues Sensitivity to loud sounds or a dislike for noisy places.Speech delay and/or speech issues from a young age.Attention issues due to the overwhelming sound environment.Problems distinguishing between similar sounds/words.Problems hearing when there is any background noise.Presenting with a hearing loss, though testing as “normal”.The National Coalition of Auditory Processing Disorders has a helpful list of other symptoms. That is what it is like for a child with a central auditory processing disorder.īecause of this, speech issues often show up early in children with APD, as do difficulties following instructions or hearing in noisy environments. Just think about how difficult it can be to hear the difference between an S and an F when talking on the phone. You can see how that would make learning phonics very challenging! English has around 46 different phonetic sounds, many of which are very similar. Kids with APD might not be able to hear the difference between “seventy” and “seventeen”. It may or may not be diagnosed APD, but it is still something which needs to be addressed in the same way, if the symptoms are there. However, it is common for some level of weakness with auditory processing to occur developmentally, due to glue ear or ear infections when the child is very young. It is usually something you are born with, or more rarely, caused by brain injury. The hearing mechanism is working just fine, but the brain is not interpreting that information correctly. Though it can look like a hearing issue, children with APD will tend to pass a basic hearing test. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association specifies that APD is a disorder in the way the brain processes what the ears hear - and one that is not due to another cause (like autism, or ADHD).
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