How Do I Know If My Child Has An Auditory Processing Disorder?
A simple checklist to identify listening difficulties that a child with an Auditory Processing Disorder may experience. Please get in touch if you're concerned.
The following symptoms may indicate that your child has an auditory processing disorder or difficulty. It is not meant to be used as a diagnostic tool, but is to help you become aware of any listening difficulties your child may be experiencing.
If you are concerned about your child’s hearing or listening ability, please don’t hesitate to get in touch as early intervention is crucial to your child achieving their best outcomes.
Difficulties listening in the presence of any continuous noise, causing particular difficulties with perceiving speech clearly. Frequent repetitions are therefore required even within a fairly quiet environment.
Hyperacuity or auditory hypersensitivity resulting in significant distress or distractibility in response to certain, particularly loud sounds.
Difficulties listening to fast or distorted speech.
Difficulties determining where a sound is coming from.
Slow processing of auditory information.
Significant auditory fatigue observed as extreme tiredness or exhaustion after listening over extended periods of time.
Difficulties recognising isolated sounds in words or difficulties detecting subtle differences between words. This can have a significant impact on the development of your child's mechanical reading and spelling skills.
Difficulties listening to one conversation and filtering out another conversation, leading to significant distractability and a need for frequent repetitions.
Difficulties recognising changes in tone, pitch, prosody and loudness i.e. difficulties recognising suprasegmental cues in speech. Due to the difficulties in understanding these cues, your child may not make use of these suprasegmental cues in their own speech and may appear as ‘monotone’ when talking.
Difficulties understanding lengthy and grammatically complex spoken and written language leading to a need for clarifications i.e. repetitions in a shorter and grammatically simpler manner. For example, difficulty following multi-step instructions.
If you are concerned about your child’s hearing and listening, our clinicians provide diagnostic assessments and develop therapy plans for intervention based on your child’s specific diagnosis. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any concerns.