In
recognition of Speech and Hearing Month, I wanted to tell the story of my
personal experience as a mom of a child diagnosed with auditory processing
disorder (APD).
APD is best
explained using the example of the game “Operator”. If the first person is the ears, and the last
the brain, everyone in between is the channel by which the message travels. And remember what happens? By the time the message reaches the “brain”
it has been altered. So, really APD is
just that – when a message or sound changes as it travels from the ears to the
brain resulting in the brain getting the wrong message.
Signs of APD
can include difficulty with: communicating in noisy environments, following
multi-step instructions, and wrongly hearing words, sounds and sentences. As an overlap exists between the signs of APD
and other disorders, and this may coexist with other problems, it can be
difficult to diagnose.
Being a
clinician, I recognized early that my daughter struggled with “hearing”. Yet at 18 months her hearing test was
“fine”. When she was three I remember
telling her that her “ears and brain were not talking”. In school she would become easily distracted,
would struggle with multi-step instructions, and did much better in classes
that were smaller, less chaotic, or when she sat closer to the teacher. At home the presence of her APD was apparent
when my instruction “change your shirt” would be met with the response “I am
not wearing shorts”. Or, when the
instructions “brush your hair, grab your lunch and put your coat on” might
result in one, maybe two, but rarely three of those instructions being
followed. But my favorite remains when
my daughter told her sisters they were “turtle twins” as she had misheard the
word “fraternal”.
The
diagnosis of APD is made by an audiologist when the child is at least 7 or 8
years old. However, psycho-educational
tests can also be helpful to rule out other or comorbid problems. In adults, APD also exists, and can be the
result of many factors, including acquired brain injury. Also, some research suggests that men start
to struggle with APD after age 35 and women after menopause. My next blog will focus on ways we managed
our daughter’s APD at home, in sports and school, and these same strategies
could also be used by others who have, treat, or know someone with APD.
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