auditory processing disorder and dyslexia

The down side was that her brain was having to work 5-6 times more than her peers and she was exhausted all the time.ĪPD is very common and easily missed (even more so than dyslexia) which can lead to children being labelled very negatively as ‘lazy’, ‘slow’ or ‘careless’. For a bright child, she seemed to struggle with certain aspects of basic standardised education and yet was maintaining the status quo through sheer will power and hard work. Think of it as a computer mouse which is not well plugged into the computer main.ĭoes your child seem to not ‘hear’ you or their teacher at times? Do they tend to only hear one part of a multi-step instruction? Do they lack organisational skills and struggle with telling the time or the concept of time itself? Perhaps they find it harder to read (particularly aloud) and take longer to grasp the context/plot of the story? That was my daughter Larissa before we had her referred to an educational psychologist. In a nutshell, it is a disconnect between the ear (heard input) and the brain (processing input). It is a relatively new area of study and not even the leading educational psychologists can agree on whether it is a part of dyslexia, tends to occur with dyslexia or something else entirely. I certainly hadn’t until five years ago when my daughter Larissa was diagnosed with it.

In 2017, writer Ela Lourenco, shared her experience of supporting her daughter who has APD and I would like to share that content with you again as it gives the perspective from a parent which I think is useful. Just when you feel like you are starting to understand what dyslexia is, it may be that in discussing a child’s needs the term Auditory Processing Disorder is used.Īuditory Processing Disorder is described on the NHS website as a ‘hearing problem where the brain is unable to process sounds in the normal way.’ Taken together, these results confirm the notion that some auditory system processing mechanisms are impaired in children with dyslexia and that audiovisual training can diminish these deficits.Have you ever heard the term ‘Auditory Processing Disorder’ and wondered what it was, especially when used to describe a challenge your child was having? This article will give you some further information on what ‘APD’ is and where you can get further information. The training-related improvements in reading score were greatest in children presenting the greatest changes in MOC lateralization. Likewise, in certain children MOC functioning showed increased asymmetry in favour of the right ear following audiovisual training. Audiovisual training significantly improved reading and shifted the categorical perception curve of certain children with dyslexia towards the average-reading children's pattern of voicing sensitivity. These deficits in VOT perception were sometimes accompanied by MOC function abnormalities, in particular a reduction in or even absence of the asymmetry in favour of the right ear found in average-reading children.

The results showed an altered voicing sensitivity in some children with dyslexia, and that the most severely impaired children presented the most severe reading difficulties. Secondly, we investigated whether audiovisual training focusing on voicing contrast could modify VOT sensitivity and, in parallel, induce MOC system plasticity.

The medial olivocochlear (MOC) system, an inhibitory pathway functioning under central control, was also explored. The aim of the present study was 2-fold: first, the perceptual skills of average-reading children and children with dyslexia were compared in a categorical perception task assessing the processing of a phonemic contrast based on voice onset time (VOT). Reading disability is associated with phonological problems which might originate in auditory processing disorders.

Auditory processing disorder and dyslexia