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Auditory Processing Disorder

This article is a "must read" for any parent who is concerned that their child is not doing well at school, but no one can tell them why.

Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) is a little known condition that may affect 10% of children, the majority of whom are undiagnosed. According to Contact a Family it was first recognised in the USA in the 1960s.

APD is a term that is often used to describe people with normal hearing who have listening difficulties.

Because my child has APD I can recognise possible symptoms in other children. However, the sad fact is that many people who work with children, including teachers and health care professionals, have never heard of APD and the children who are not diagnosed do not get the help they need.

Symptoms include all or a combination of some of the following problems:

Lack of understanding when listening

Difficulty in expressing themselves clearly using speech

Difficulty reading

Understanding spoken messages and/or remembering instructions

Staying focussed

Hearing and listening in noisy places

Becoming tired in the afternoons

Undiagnosed sufferers can:

be considered lazy at school

be accused of not trying hard enough in lessons

be told they are rude because they ignore you

be regarded as not contributing enough to class discussions.

In the meantime, the child does not know what the Teacher is complaining about. As far as they are concerned they are trying really hard.

So what exactly is APD? APD is generally described as a listening rather than a hearing disorder.

Sufferers have normal hearing but they experience a random inability to process auditory (verbal) information. They hear the sounds but the brain does not always process them. Hearing starts with a complex set of actions within the outer, middle and inner ear. These actions send the sounds to the brain that interprets them so the individual can understand. This set of actions can be defined as 'listening' for which the medical term is 'auditory processing.'

How badly sufferers are affected can often depend on the immediate environment and noisy surroundings can present huge problems for those affected. Inevitably it can hinder their attainment at school if undiagnosed. Not only can sufferers not distinguish speech sometimes but specific sounds may hurt their ears.

I remember a firework display that we had to rapidly leave as the noise reduced Lizzie to tears. Her teachers would remark that sometimes in class she would cover her ears if she knew something noisy was about to happen. She also cannot bear anyone clicking their nails.

According to the Institute of Hearing Research the causes of APD are still unclear and the website for Auditory Processing Disorder in the United Kingdom states that the condition can be part of an "Invisible Disability package", where other disabilities can be present such as Dyslexia or Attention Deficit Disorder.

The very real danger is that each condition can mask the presence of another. Another concern is that while the majority of research being conducted relates to children, 10% of adults may also suffer from APD and many may never be diagnosed.

More information about the management of APD and our personal experience can be found on my webpage at:

Auditory Processing Disorder

Contributor's Note

This information has been extracted from a more detailed article on APD, that was originally published on Squidoo.com by aj2008. At the time of publishing this Qassia article, it is currently one of the Top 100 articles on Squidoo.

This is a very interesting intel. I can understand how a child suffering from this disorder could very quickly become disillusioned with school, if they believe they are trying hard, but are being criticized by their teacher.

I would imagine that diagnosis is rather difficult? So many of the outward symptoms seem to be identical with the behavioural features of a child who is deliberately lazy and/or inattentive.

Could you give us a brief resume of the diagnostic strategy one would follow in order to identify APD?

Diagnosis is undertaken by an audiologist experienced in dealing with children with APD. There are no physical symptoms, as far as I am aware, however, the symptoms I describe will alert any professional who is experienced with dealing with the condition. More information and links can be found in the full article at www.squidoo.com/apd

Personally, as the mother of four children, and someone who works with children in amateur theatre, I have yet to come across a child who is deliberately lazy and/or inattentive. I find that the causes are due to either lack of stimulation, poor diet or problems such as APD, ADD or autistic problems that have not been diagnosed. I am not making these statements as a health professional, just someone who has a lot of experience with children.

I would also add that a reviewer has flagged up that this intel would benefit from corrections in spelling and grammar - if there are any spelling mistakes or typos, bearing in mind that the author is British and the reviewer may be non-British, then I would be interested to have specific feedback as to where the reviewer believes I have made a mistake.

My youngest, an eight year old boy suffers from aspergers syndrome, and has been diagnosed as a borderline ADHD sufferer. However after reading this article, I may suggest APD to his psychotherapist. Thanks for this insightful article.

You are very welcome. The main thing is, do not give up in your quest to get a full diagnosis so that your son gets all the help he needs. Good luck.

The reviewer who flagged this intel for spelling and grammar is living in a dream world. Possibly the Americans might object to "focussed" which I gather they spell as "focused" and the word "teacher" has been capitalized, a blemish which I would attribute to typo error rather than ignorance. But otherwise the intel is a great deal better than many I have seen, even unto a thousandfold.

It seems that Qassia has attracted among its membership more than a fair share of misguided and erroneous punctiliousness.

One of my intels, which was written with the utmost care and craft, with not a word out of place, was flagged as in need of a complete overhaul!

Many thanks. I am starting to think that there's some people on this site who exist solely to "flame" and criticise.

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