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CENTRAL AUDITORY PROCESSING DISORDER

 

Peter is now in a big boy first grade.  But his attention often wanders and he gets easily distracted by noises from the environment, such as the sound of his friends talking, chairs moving, etc.  Peter has a central auditory processing disorder that affects his hearing in the presence of noise.

 

Annabelle also has problems. She does not remember the directions given by her parents or her teacher.  Often she follow a part of what she is being asked to do.  She has a central auditory processing disorder affecting the decoding of incoming linguistic information.

 

Charlies has a lot of difficulty remembering the days of the week, the months of the year.  He has a hard time remembering nursery rhymes, that other children of his age seem to hear so easily.  Charles has a central auditory processing disorder that affects his auditory memory of sequencing skills (he cannot remember the exact order of things).

 

Marianne has little success perceiving the difference between certain sounds (for example:  ball and mall or sun and fun).  This then causes her to have specific trouble with dictations.  She has bad marks, even if she puts in a lot of effort.  She has a central auditory processing disorder that affects the ability to discriminate certain sounds.

 

The children are not hearing impaired.  On the contrary, they can hear very well, that is, they can hear all the sounds normally.  Peter, Annabelle, Charlie and Marianne give the impression that they do not motivated.  However, what is really causing them to appear that way is the fact that their auditory processing abilities are weaker than those of others children.

 

Unfortunately, there is no medical treatment for this disorder at present.  However, using FM systems, learning new listening techniques and using visual cues, are just a few amongst many options that can allow these children to integrate, to function in the school and to experience success instead of future.  Talk to an audiologist, the professional who deals with hearing disorders.

 

SEVERE SPECIFIC LANGUAGE DISORDER : THE TRUE HANDICAP

 

"Me go me go me bus my"  Tommy is 6 years old.  He is not intellectually impaired or delayed.  He is not deaf.  He is not physically disabled.  In fact, he looks like all the other children, but he has a specific language disorders. Tommy has been followed by Speech-Language Pathologist since the age of 3 and he is presently attending a special language class where the ratio is one teacher for every 10 students. Tommy has significant problem in understanding language.  These difficulties are so severe that they limit his ability to express himself verbally, to play with friends and to participate in neighbourhood activities.  Still, Tommy wants to communicate and he is continually trying to understand language though what he sees - he does well when he is shown what to do.

 

Approximately 25 out of every 10,000 people have specific language disorders.  A severe disorder - formerly called congenital Aphasia and also called specific language impairment or, in French, "la dysphasie" -  it thought to be caused by a neurological dysfunction in the area of the brain responsible for language, although there is not yet a way to confirm this.  Because the language disorder causes problems in other areas of development, it does indeed become a handicap.  Children with specific language disorders have significant problems in auditory processing, in language comprehension and expression, in abstraction and generalization as well as major difficulties in temporal sequencing.

 

At school age, language disordered children will continue to need specialized services, some school boards have language classes which address the language adaptation and still needed for a child to have maximum learning opportunities in school.  The services of the Speech-Language Pathologist continue to be critical particularly in the early school years.  The Speech-Language Pathologist may also help with the transition from elementary to high school, where new language demands may appear.

 

A Speech-Language Pathologist is the key person in the diagnosis of language disorder.  The Speech-Language Pathologist works closely with other members of a multidisciplinary team (audiologist, psychologist, teacher, doctor, occupational therapist, parent, etc.) to establish the links between the language difficulties, learning difficulties and cognitive difficulties.  The Speech-Language Pathologist also meet with the parents to outlive the language intervention plan, to equip them in how therapy works and to answer their questions.  Finally, the Speech-Language Pathologist works directly with the child.  It is through the specialized interventions which extend over a period of years, and through the integrated approach of all involved that the language disordered child can grow and develop into a functional and independent individual.

 

Source : 1998 - Contenu, design et médias - Ordre des orthophonistes et audiologistes du Québec - Fiche 7.