Causes of Auditory Processing Disorder

>> So Devon, causes of Auditory Processing Disorder, I have to ask, can you be born with this thing? Can you inherit it? >> Yes you can. So, basically what you inherit is just some faulty wiring through your genes. >> Wow! So even though you’re born with it we’re suggesting that they can then be treated if it’s discovered? >> Yes, very much so. >> So, my question now is, like if you’re a teacher and you’ve got a classroom with a whole bunch of kids that you think – you know, you often hear the teachers say, ‘Oh, that class that I’ve got, they’re wild that bunch of kids’, we’re suggesting that a whole bunch of students might actually have Auditory Processing Disorder. Do we have any numbers on how many people do actually have it? >> I’m glad you’ve asked that question Colin because I’ve actually done a big search just recently into the literature and I haven’t been able to find any current statistics on incidents. There could be some research happening right now but at this point in time we don’t have an accurate percentage of the incidents in a classroom, but I would think in every classroom there’s going to be at least one or two or even up to four or five children that could have some aspects of Auditory Processing Disorder. >> So it sounds to me then, that educators could actually have even more of a role than just educating in that through their suspicion or through their observation of students - and as an interesting point, ‘observation of students’ is actually a legitimate form of assessment would you believe, in terms of academic assessment - it’s possible then I guess that teachers could play a role in helping science to perhaps bring these things, bring them up or to make people aware of the fact that there are problems? >> Yes, you know the teacher is really the person at the cold face that’s going to be observing these children; if you get an observant teacher who is aware of what that behaviour might mean, a behaviour they’re seeing in a child and what that might mean. >> Well from my experience in the classroom I have to be honest and say that I’ve often felt a little bit uncomfortable about perhaps suggesting that someone might have a hearing problem, is that something that a teacher should feel uncomfortable about or can we be open about it? >> Be open about it because I think an aware, informed teacher is obviously going to be of great benefit to a classroom of students. Some of the things that a teacher might observe in a child who could have a processing difficulty would be things like children who aren’t able to remember the instructions; so halfway through the instruction they’ve forgotten what the teacher says. They might remember the very last bit but not the first bit, so when the teacher says to the students, Get out your Maths book, go to Chapter 3, go to Question 7 and do A, B and C, your child with Auditory Processing will get B and C but they won’t have remembered the rest of it and so they’re looking at their mate, ‘What did she say? What have I got to do?’ >> So they’re just hearing bits and pieces? >> Yes, they’re not hearing all of it, or it’s your student who if there’s a lot of talking being done in the classroom they’ll seem to just drift off because again the brain is overloaded and they can’t take anymore, take in anymore information because the brain has gone on auditory overload. Or those students who have a lot more difficulty when there’s background noise, they don’t do too badly if the classroom is quiet and there’s just one person speaking but if there’s any amount of background noise, it can be a fan or traffic outside or air conditioning, they’ll have a lot more difficulty processing the information. One of the big groups of children with Auditory Processing are those that have difficulty with literacy aspects of literacy, particularly decoding and spelling, because they’re having the difficulty with auditory discrimination. >> Right, sorry, to interrupt you there, but if you’re suggesting that bad spelling is an indicator then I have to say that all of my students have got Auditory Processing Disorder. >> I think bad spelling – I hate to say this but I think some of that reflection is the way spelling is actually taught in the classrooms these days... >> Oh no! >> but for some students their spelling issues are to do with the fact that they aren’t able to analyse sounds within words which is a skill you need to be a good speller. They can’t hear the difference between a ‘p’ and a ‘b’ or when there’s three consonants together in a word like ‘splash’ they maybe hear the ‘s’ and the ‘l’ but they virtually don’t hear that ‘p’ sound in there so they have difficulty with that auditory analysis, because of difficulties with processing speech sounds. >> It sounds like there could be a little bit of a crossover with that and Dyslexia, am I hearing that correctly? >> Yes, and in some aspects of some types of Auditory Processing Disorder there’s a big correlation with Dyslexia. Now, I’m not suggesting that Auditory Processing is a cause of Dyslexia or that all children with Dyslexia have Auditory Processing, but it certainly is the case that children with certain aspects of Auditory Processing Disorder do have more difficulty with acquiring competent literacy skills. >> Wow! So, let’s just say for example, and we might finish off with this one, let’s just say that I was born perfectly healthy baby and I had a reasonably normal upbringing say to the age of five, is it possible for me to develop Auditory Processing Disorder as I get older? >> You could have a processing disorder that up until five doesn’t cause you any difficulty, but when you get on through school and as the language of the classroom becomes more complex and you’re required to do more sophisticated things with your listening and processing, that your processing disorder becomes more apparent as you go through school. >> Okay, so that’s a critical distinction there isn’t it? So something that could be seen as being perfectly normal for the first five years where a parent of a young child could say, ‘That’s just my kid’ they might actually be overlooking something which could be the beginning of something quite serious? >> Exactly, and this does happen... >> Wow! >> particularly when we’re thinking of language base – and every subject has language base – but for some students when language becomes more complex and less literal subtle aspects of auditory processing as in not understanding sarcasm because you’re not able to make those fine distinctions between tone of voice. >> Mm. >> So I might not understand that something was a statement rather than a question, or I can use the same words to be complimentary or insulting, and if I have a problem with processing those subtle tonal differences in speech I can misinterpret what’s being said to me. >> Wow! Well it looks like we’re going to cover a little bit more of that in future videos, for example, we’re going to start talking later about how to identify Auditory Processing Disorder in a little bit more detail. I look forward to that. Devon, thanks for your time. >> My pleasure.