Auditory Processing Disorder

Auditory processing is a term used to describe what happens when your brain recognizes and interprets the sounds around you. Humans hear when energy that we recognize as sound travels through the ear and is changed into electrical information that can be interpreted by the brain. The "disorder" part of auditory processing disorder means that something is adversely affecting the processing or interpretation of the information. Auditory Processing Disorder is an impaired ability to attend to, discriminate, remember, recognize, or comprehend information presented auditory in individuals who typically exhibit normal intelligence and normal hearing (Keith, 1995). This processing disorder can interfere with speech and language skills and academic performance, especially reading, writing and spelling. Katz, Stecker and Henderson (1992) described auditory processing as "what we do with what we hear." It involves the ability to remember what is heard, sequence or recall what was heard in the exact order that it was presented, follow directions appropriately or fill in missing pieces of the information in order to complete the message. Children with Auditory Processing Disorder often do not recognize subtle differences between sounds in words, even though the sounds themselves are loud and clear. For example, the request, "Tell me how a chair and a couch are alike" may sound to a child with Auditory Processing Disorder like, "Tell me how a couch and a chair are alike." It can even be understood by the child as, "Tell me how a cow and a hair are alike." These kinds of problems are more likely to occur when a child with Auditory Processing Disorder is in a noisy environment or when he or