This weekend I was reading about CAPD and realized that my 8 year old son had all of the symptoms! The school psychologist suggested ADD or Asperger’s, however, neither really fit. She never said a word about auditory issues, though looking back at his test results with CAPD in mind it seems to be obvious (at least to me…). What therapies are out there? Would a formal diagnosis be helpful? What can the pediatrician do? Who tests for such things? What have you tried that has helped? Do children outgrow the problem?
Interestingly, I homeschool my son, and he normally has major difficulty understanding the word problems in math. Today, I read them to him at about half speed, pausing after each sentence and he did the problems perfectly. It was kind of amazing.
I would really appreciate any help. Thank you.
Re: Need help with possible auditory processing problem
Yes, you do want to see a pediatric audiologist specializing in auditory processing disorders.
The fact that your son understood you perfectly when you slowed speech down certainly is consistent with APD. We did a therapy called Fast Forward in which speech is artificially slowed down until the child masters it. It is pretty expensive but you can do it at home which reduces the cost.
Two books you might want to read are:
When the Brain Can’t Hear: Unraveling the Mystery of Auditory Processing Disorder, by Teri James Bellis (2002)
Like Sound Through Water: A Mother’s Journey through Auditory Processing Disorder by Karen J. Foli.
Bellis is an leading audiologist who has written a user friendly book on APD. Foli’s book is a parent’s account of figuring out what is wrong with her child and treatment. I cried when I read it because in third grade her son was within the “normal” range. My son, on the other hand, was having extreme problems still, despite several years of therapy. Now at age 11, he is doing really really well. He has not outgrown APD (and for him, APD is only one of his issues). But his auditory processing issues are fairly minimal at this point but we’ve done lots of therapy.
I have heard pretty consistently that there is brain development that takes place around age 13 that does lessen auditory processing problems. The audiologist who diagnosed my son (whose own son has APD) told me that 13 is as much as you get naturally. I have had another audiologist tell me she thinks some LD kids continue to develop much later in their teens….her example is her own brother.
But I certainly wouldn’t rely on development alone if your child is having problems now.
Beth
Re: Need help with possible auditory processing problem
My son is 7 and I had a speech therapist tell me she thought he had CAPD when he was 4. ( At the time he was having a speech evalation at our Childrens Hospital speech dept.) His receptive speech always lagged behind his productive speech since he was 2. That is a major tip-off to CAPD. My son qualified for the public school preschool due to speech issues so he went there. At the beginning of K he was deemed ‘too average’ to be on an IEP any longer so he went to K without one. Soon he was falling behind and ended up nearly failing K until I finally took him to a reading tutor who worked with him several times a week after school. The school re-tested him and then he was able to go on to first grade with a new IEP. ( and still with an outside tutor) One thing you could do at home with him is the Earobics computer program. It can help and my son likes it. Read those books Beth suggested for other ideas. You are right that CAPD often gets misdiagnosed as ADD as it has similar symptoms. School shrinks are used to ADD diagnoses- but only an audiologist can diagnose CAPD and identify sub-areas that are weak or strong. Take care- Nancy
would be the one to see for a definitive diagnosis. Also you may find that they may call it CAPD or APD. It is called Auditory Processing Disorder.