7 yo son with auditory processing/speed issues

Request, in writing, an evaluation for you son from the school. This will give you some information on what is going on. You may also wish to talk with your pediatrician about seeing and auditory specialist to determine what is going on with his hearing.

Sounds VERY similar to my dd at age 5. You may want to get him evaluated for Central Auditory Processing Disorder. We got our diagnosis from the local university who had a research dept. on CAPD. I also got an APD diagnosis from an SLP. (the CAPD showed issues with competing background noise, the APD tests showed issues with word discrimination and auditory memory tasks).

You should look into an ‘auditory tonal training’ program first before doing PACE(plus personal opinion is 7 is too young for PACE. I think he’ll get frustrated, although can be done). FFW is a program that can help. Although controversial, we chose to spend the money on a sound therapy program called Tomatis (we now do Dynamic Listening System program). And we did Earobics vs. Fastforward. My dd was only 5.5 at the time and we could not get her to sit through a session of Earobics ($60 program). The feedback I had at the time for FFW was that parents said their kids HATED it - was very struggle to get through. Given that, I didnt’ think we could get through painlessly FFW. She struggled with Earobics, but after we did Tomatis she breezed through.

Nothing is a cure, but there are programs that help alot. Tomatis was life-saving for us. My dd was very severe/handicapped, but now she is in a solid average range on those APD tasks. We continue to do the DLS system and we see additional improvement everytime. (Costs alot, but EASY).

I would suggest a speech language evaluation first, and then possibly a neuropsychological evaluation. I’d rule out ADHD before seeking the auditory processing evaluation. But honestly, the speech and neuropsych evals should be plenty of information. I do not recommend just randomly doing therapies until you know what all the issues are.

Hi,

I am an SLP and I would suggest getting a speech and language evaluation I would defintely do the speech eval before I did an Auditory processing Evaluation. Also the SLP can do the SCAN and also do the new TAPS-3 which has an auditory figure ground CD. which will see how he does with background noise and multi-tasking. You can also have the Neuropsyche do the TOVA but due to video games a lot of kids can ace that but they are still ADHD.

The next time notice he is zoned out…Ask him where he went in his head or what he was thinking about. You may be shocked at what he tells you. I have done this so many times with kids and they look at me and say…”How did you know I was somewhere else?” I grin and say…”Been there done that myself and I can spot it a MILE away.” :-D

Kids that are ADHD Inattentive are usually the well behaved quiet kids…dreamers and creative types who are in their own little world and can hyperfocus on what they want to do. They have this uncanny ability to tune everything else out instead of consistently staying focused. Also they are easily distracted by something that may be more intriquing instead of sticking to the task at hand.

Also the SLP can do the SCAN and also do the new TAPS-3 which has an auditory figure ground CD. which will see how he does with background noise and multi-tasking.

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pattim,

I have an adult client with ADD who describes problems with auditory figure ground and multi-tasking. Would the TAPS-3 be at all useful to him? He is in his 30s and has his doctorate, but these problems frustrate him. I am wondering if FastForWord might be helpful. Any thoughts?

Nancy