Central Auditory Processing Disorder

I have a 6 year old daughter with CAPD. We are not homeschooling yet,
but if we do not have a better year this year in first grade than we did
in kind. last year, that is what I am looking to do.
My daughter has a terrible time with background noise, distractions,
short term memory.
Although I cannot offer specific homeschool advice, I thought you might want
to connect with another mom with a similar situation.
stephanie

Yes, Stephanie - I’d like to talk to someone - I thought I would go crazy before I finally had a name for it. It has been frustrating getting to this point - At first I thought her hearing was off, but that wasn’t the case - then I thought that it might be autism or Add, but she didn’t have all the signs. We put her in a stste supported IEP program at age 3. She has speech classes teice a week and has made great strides, however we decided to hold her back one year before starting Kindergarten. She does very well with visual cues…

I really got tired of friends and family telling me she would grow out of it.
I know this is something I will have to keep my eye on - throughtout her school years… I’m just afraid that the public school teachers won’t have time to accomidate her in class.

I had a list of things that I was concerned about - How many of these did you notice in your daughter and have some areas gotten better for her :

1. Ignors the person speaking to her when she is emgrossed in something else.
2. Problems with abstract concepts.
3. Complains about noise - says she can’t concentrate.
4. Doesn’t like being around large groups of people talking.
5. Ask us to “Slow down” or repeat things a lot.
6. Gets frustrated when no one understands her.
7. Doesn’t seem to hear you when you call her from another room.
8. Forgets directions.
9. Has problems sequencing - letters numbers words
10. Confuses similar sounding words
11. Ask me the meaning of words , a lot.
12. Gets confused if given a list of things to do.
13. Has trouble recalling new names and places.
14. Poor sence of direction and poor concept of time.

That’s about it –— That’s enough I think

On the other hand she is very musically inclined and can sing almost any melody , no matter how complex. She loves art and dance class!!!

I would like to do homeschooling as at least a part-time option because I feel she will need help, especially by the time she is in second grade and from there on.

Talk later , A.N.

My son has CAPD. He is 8. We didn’t figure it out until he was 7, although he was received speech therapy as a preschooler due to a speech delay.

My son did Fast Forward between first and second grade and it made a big difference. His auditory memory is now in the low end of normal, something 4 years of speech therapy was unable to achieve. He can follow directions. He is more attentive. He can distinguish between sounds. He tested afterwards in the normal range on decoding of speech. If I had to do it all over again, I would have done it a year earlier. I also know people who have done sound therapy with young children with very good results. I also have heard that Fast Forward is easier and faster if you do sound therapy first.

My son has had a lot of intervention but we’re still catching him up. The schools have been minimally useful but my son is a difficult case. He has visual processing, word retreival, sensory integration issues as well as CAPD. We pulled him part time last year after a dispute about remediation. We are going to keep him first thing in the morning now to finish up PACE which has a superb auditory processing component. He still has trouble with auditory sequencing.

Hi,

I have CAPD and so does my daughter, but we also have ADD, which has many of the same symptoms as CAPD. I am a Speech Pathology grad student right now. I have gone back to school because of all my daughter’s problems.

The thing that really helped my daughter to develop auditory memory was an Assisitive Listening Device. We are still extremely distracted by noise but the medication for ADD helps to minimize this. For years I thought that it was just the CAPD causing problems for my child but underlying it all along was ADD. And it wasn’t until we found out about the ADD a year ago that we were able to put things all together for her. It took me 6 years to figure this out so you may want to look into that as well. Feel free to contact me by e-mail. There are some articles that I can forward to you about ADD/CAPD and Language…

Patti

Hello Patti,

How did the ADD differ from the CAPD? Did you see my list of concerns in my eariler post? My daughter seems to be able to focus on a task and stay with it - but she gets distracted by noise. I don’t want to miss anything here, but how does the ADD medication help CAPD? Send me those articles please. [email protected]

Does your daughter go to public/private school? Does she use her Listening Device at school? Do you have to home school as well?

A.Norton

By the way I looked over some specific traits of ADD and you could be right on that –- she is in constant motion all day long, she is humming, singing, dancing or jumping most of the time. She bumps into things a lot - I forgot to mention she has broken her arm “twice”. I’ve seen her fall down for no reason at all. She acts obsessed about some things “special interest”, yet totally forgets what she had for lunch, or where she just left a favorite toy. Very impatient sometimes, can’t wait two seconds for anything –-sound familiar.

A.Norton

My daughter has all of the symptoms that you listed!!
In addition to these, she has a very weak auditory memory, and
also struggles with some fine motor skills.
I too get so frustrated when people (well meaning I am sure)
say that she will grow out of this.
We just got a diagnosis at the end of last year. I knew something was
amiss, I just didn’t know what. Our daughter has had no therapy
until this past summer. We are doing OT to improve fine motor
skills and going to speech therapy. I did Earobics on the computer
this summer with her at home, and I am getting certified to be a
Fast forward provider so we can do that. I would strongly suggest
either of these programs for your daughter. I also doing
reading with her at home using “Reading Reflex”. You can get it
at a bookstore for $16. Highly recommended and spoken of
frequently on these boards, it teaches reading using the Phono graphix
method. You can order the Earobics Cd for about $60 over the internet.
It has helped my child.
These boards have been a lifesaver for me. I will be eternally grateful for
all of the good info. and support I have received.
Would love to correspond with you to share support and ideas since
we have a very similar situation!
stephanie

Gee, sounds an awful lot like me and half the people in my family! Keep up the good work, do NOT expect her to “grow out of it” (that is a damaging myth), and remember people do manage OK given support an dteaching that reaches their strengths instead of pounding on their weaknesses.

A Norton,

If you really think your daugther has capd you should join the listserv for capd parents. It is a listserv that parents share information. It is run by st johns.

Lisa

I will send you the articles… The Medication settles our brains down so that we can focus and not be distracted by sounds. Even though I am hearing impaired I am still very distracted by sounds as is my daughter… I had some of the same concerns that you did…

Patti

It is my understanding from my son’s Child Psych and Pediatrician that a VERY high number of AD(H)D children have either a coexistent auditory or visual processing disorder/deficit. In our case it is ADHD and Visual Processing but believe me he does not always hear me either (and he has been tested for CAPD).

Stephanie - please keep in contact with me by e-mail and snail mail - At least now I have a starting point and can figure out what works and what doesn’t .
e-mail me at [email protected] for my snail mail address.

Thanks for all the info - this is a really good forum!!

A. Norton

Thanks for the tips - A.Norton

Thanks for all the information - A.Norton

Thanks - I will . A.Norton

What is the URL for this? Is it the St. Johns medical facility? Thanks!

You’ve identified my son who is almost 13 this year. He’s starting Jr. High and has been through the regular public education system. He has ADHD, & Tourettes along with CAPD and no, they don’t appear to grow out of the CAPD. I have considered home schooling MANY times. I work full time outside the home so I haven’t done home schooling, yet I’ve always looked for ways to help “educate” my son. He’s been in special education programs since kindergarten. It was pretty depressing to hear the school psych tell me he was the worst case he’d ever seen in a child in his 30+ professional years. I’m sure the tourettes had a lot to do with it, but the CAPD was not far behind. The teachers were telling me his IQ was low and that he wasn’t going to be learning. I knew otherwise, and so I fought for better placement. It was finally in 4th grade that he was pulled out of the regular classroom and put in a self-contained classroom with a teacher that was VERY organized, very disciplined (so it was a quiet class), not a lot of bulletin boards, and kept desks in the same place all the time, etc. For once my son came home and said “I love school!”. Some of the best advice anyone has given me was his speech teacher when he was 4 (he stuttered terribly, although does not now!) — speak slowly, & enunciate your words like Mr. Rogers! I think sometimes he gets hyper (still) because he can’t make sense of what is going on in the sounds around him. I have learned a few things with school & educating him: 1) if something’s not working, try something else; 2) just because it works today, doesn’t mean it will work next year, etc. That’s where a flexible teacher most concerned with the child’s education (Parent) comes in most handy. Good luck to you…

My son was in PS for K, 1st and 2nd grade but we started hs’ing him for 3rd, one year ago. It was the best move for us and he is back to loving school and learning. Folks who are not familar with CAPD have stated that they could never handle the stress of hs’ing. But I have wondered how my ds could handle the stress of ps— But then again HS’ing is not for everyone. I know that last year my stress level was very low

Please read my son’s story at the web site below. We were told by the PS that Michael would never read and that there was nothing we could do. He had very poor short term memory, great difficulty hearing in noisy environments, poor temporary processing and a very bright child. We tried Earobics but it was just frustration. We did FFW and saw remarkable improvement. We did Reading Reflex and Michael learned to read. We did FFW11 and again saw improvement in processing. The PS denied that anything that we did affected our ds but that we just have a bright child that decided to pay attention and learn to read. Very Sad, but I’m glad I don’t deal with the PS anymore.

Its been awhile since I’ve visited this bb but I used to be a regular—

Carole

Michael’s Reading Success Story: http://www.gis.net/~patncarole/onechild.html