What Is APD (Auditory Processing Disorder)?

Find out what Auditory Processing Disorder is, and the signs of it.

Don’t be fooled by the word “auditory.” APD isn’t a hearing problem; it’s about how well the brain is processing the sounds that the ear receives. Find out the signs, assessments, and options for children, teens, and adults with APD.

Signs of Auditory Processing Disorder

Auditory Processing Disorder can easily be misdiagnosed because the resulting struggles may be attributed to other causes. For example, a child who is struggling to understand verbal directions in class may struggle with grades, appear to be goofing off, act out in frustration, withdraw from interaction, or experience low self-esteem from the feeling that everyone else in the class “gets it” better than he or she does. At first glance, a teacher or parent might assume that this child is unmotivated, has ADHD, has behavior issues, is introverted, etc.

Children and adults with an auditory processing disorder can also struggle with communication: confusing words with similar sounds, or mispronouncing words altogether. They can also appear weak in social skills: showing a lack of confidence, not grasping verbal directions, not being able to hear and respond appropriately to content of conversations, etc. A child or adult with APD may especially struggle when in a noisy environment, or appear to have poor hearing because they frequently ask for things to be repeated or clarified.

As mentioned, some of these behaviors can also be exhibited, for example, by people with attention deficits who don’t grasp what they are hearing the first time around because they are distracted. Because of this, diagnosing APD cannot be done by looking at a list of symptoms. It must be done by an audiologist who administers a series of assessments in a sound-treated room.

Options for people with Auditory Processing Disorder

If someone is diagnosed with APD, there are three main courses of action. The first is making accommodations in the environment, for example, creating a quieter place to work or study. The second course of action involves developing other resources to compensate for the auditory processing deficit. This might include strengthening other skills, like attention, or learning active-listening techniques.

The third course of action involves taking efforts to strengthen the weak auditory processing skills themselves.

LearningRx, a brain training company, does not diagnose or treat any medical conditions, including APD. What they provide are mental workouts that strengthen cognitive skills, including auditory processing skills.

In fact, the company’s unique approach-which puts every client with his or her personal brain trainer for fun, intense mental workouts-has shown dramatic results for past clients with auditory processing weaknesses.

LearningRx measures the cognitive skills of all incoming clients, and has found that it is common to find low auditory processing skills among clients with diagnoses. The good news is that auditory processing is also the skill in which, among this group, we see the largest gains after the completion of a LearningRx brain training program.

The following chart shows the average improvements of more than 12,000 children and adults who came to LearningRx with some kind of diagnosis, including ADHD, dyslexia, TBI, and more. You can see that, after brain training, auditory processing improved by an average of 14 standard points among clients with ADHD, memory loss, dyslexia, and autism. (Standard points, by the way, rank where a person is performing in relation to their peers, and are measured on a 100-point scale from 50 to 150, with 100 considered “average.”)

Auditory processing improved by even more-an average of 15 standard points-for people with learning disabilities, TBI, and speech and language issues.

Start with a comprehensive Cognitive Skills Assessment

LearningRx offers a comprehensive Cognitive Skills Assessment that identifies weaknesses in the following cognitive skills: attention, long-term memory, short-term memory, auditory processing, visual processing, logic & reasoning, and processing speed. The assessment is not administered for the purpose of diagnosis, but for pinpointing cognitive weaknesses that can be targeted and strengthened through brain training. It’s a good place to start because, as mentioned, the symptoms of weak auditory processing skills may be shared by other conditions.

Typically, LearningRx brain training programs consist of about five hours of training a week, for a period of 12 to 32 weeks. Families often find that going through a LearningRx program once produces the results they are seeking, and that ongoing training is not necessary.

To schedule a comprehensive Cognitive Skills Assessment-which is reasonably priced and takes about an hour-contact a LearningRx Center near you.