auditory processing disorder

What you are describing sounds more like Executive Function issues. Problems with organization and being on time fall in that catagory.

What grade is he? That will help with giving tips for his situation.

I agree. Was he evaluated for ADHD as well? There are some overlapping attention symptoms between APD and ADHD, but the organizational issues are not a part of APD.

i know its been a year but i feel like typing this anyway. i had apd and im an adult not a parent. what helps me is when i have a assignment book and write things in there.

I agree. The BRIEF survey for executive functions can determine if he has the ability to plan and organize work. The school psychologist can adminster that. It is along the lines of ADD. The website www.schoolbehavior.com explains about it.

Central Auditory Processing is a secondary diagnosis. So, you are still looking for something more global as a primary diagnosis. Speech Therapy can help that. Or there are audio tapes which are more time consuming that help that.

Let us know what you find out.

My son struggled in school since the 2nd grade. He has been diagnosed with Auditory Processing Disorder. He has had many of the organizational issues and concentration issues you described. We found a combination of therapies to help him. He is 13 now and is doing really well. He has had speech therapy, some emotional therapy to learn to control frustrations. We try to limit empty carbohydrates and keep him well hydrated. Drinking lots of water helps to keep him focused. Believe it or not, XBox360 Rock Band has helped him too. Something about the coordination of the sound/beat, visual beat and hitting the drum at the same time seems to be rewiring his brain or making ear/brain connections. For several years, he had morning flax seed oil in oatmeal or yogurt for Omega 3s. He also takes a supplement, Elevate Brain & Eye Learning Memory Supplement by BioSource Naturals which is on Amazon.com.

http://www.amazon.com/Supplement-Learning-Contains-Vitamins-Guaranteed/dp/B001BGJGQG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=hpc&qid=1227449623&sr=1-1

It contains Amino Acids, Minerals, Vitamins & Herbs for brain and eye support. They are capsules, but they open and are tasteless in yogurt, applesauce and pudding. I am a Doctor of Naturopathy and formulated this product after 6 years of research and trying to help my son. After a month of taking it, I was getting raving emails from his teachers.
[Modified by: naturaldocmom on November 23, 2008 09:51 AM]

I wanted to comment on the organizational issues not being part of APD. Jack Katz, in his book, ‘Central Auditory Processing Disorders’, defines 4 profiles for CAPD. Decoding, Tolerance-Fading Memory (this is actually the category he finds most often co-exists with ADHD), Integration and …. Organization. So in some CAPD models, lack of organization IS part of APD.

If you don’t know of Dr. Jack Katz, he developed the Staggered Spondaic Word (SSW) test for identifing CAPD. While on the faculty at the University of Buffalo, his auditory department conducted alot of research on Auditory Processing and developed the first CAPD category system (known as the Buffalo Model).

I’ve heard that Dr. Katz may be practicing in Kansas City now.

The book is a difficult read, but very informative.

demarti,

How is your daughter doing? I am always wondering about her since Michelle seems very similar to your daughter, except I think we figured out that Michelle’s language is worse.

We finally found something that is helping her with her reading, and maybe even her math. The resource teacher is doing the Lindamood Bell V&V program with her. Also, the private SLP spent a lot of time working on visualizing last spring. She re-tested her in April 2008.

2007 2008

TOLD-P (Test of Language Development - Primary)

Picture Vocabulary 9% 9%
Relational Vocabulary 0% 9%
Oral Vocabulary 0% 25%
Gram. Understanding 1% 9%
Sentence Imitation <1st 1%
Word Discrimination 0% —
Phonemic Analysis 50% —
Word Articulation 50% 50%

CTOPP (Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing)

Blending Words 63% 63%
Blending Nonwords 75% —
Sound Matching 25% —
Memory for digits 9% 9%
Nonword repetition 37% —
Elision 0% 9%
Rapid Color Naming 9% 37%
Rapid Object Naming <1st 25%
Rapid Digit Naming — 16%
Rapid Letter Naming — 16%

0% means she could not perform the task AT ALL
— means she was not tested in this task

TAPS R (Test of Auditory Perceptual Skills - Revised)
April 2008 August 2008
Auditory Number Memory:
Forward 2% 16%
Reversed 58% 77%
Auditory Sentence Memory 6%
Auditory Word Memory 6%
Auditory Word Discrimination 50%
Auditory Processing 3%

RAN/RAS Tests (Rapid Automatized Naming and Rapid Alternating Stimulus Tests)

Objects 14%
Colors 30%
Numbers 45%
Letters 21%
2 Set Letters/Numbers 7%
3 Set Letters/Numbers/Colors 5%

* Scores are shown as percentile

Notice that the most surprising test results were the digit span forward and reversed. When the school psychologist tested her in the fall 2007 on the WISC she scored very poorly on this task, but after working on visualizing she began to generalize this ability and when it came to the auditory memory numbers reversed she HAD to use that skill because there’s no other way to recall numbers in reverse order without visualizing them. She scored in the 58%ile on reverse test (& 2nd%ile on forward numbers) so the SLP (out of curiosity) retested her on auditory memory numbers in August 2008. It was against protocol to retest after only 4 months, but the SLP said it was not possible for her to recall the exact #s after 4 months anyway and it was just for qualitative information to see if she could improve over time while continuing to work on visualizing in therapy and sure enough, when the she retested she scored at the 16%ile forward and 77%ile reversed.

Also, in January I asked her teacher to find her true reading comprehension level, like to keep going back to easier and easier reading levels. She told me that her comprehension was only an LOS level 6 (that’s somewhere around beginning of 1st grade and she was in 3rd grade then). So, 2 months later (after beginning V&V plus working on visualizing strategies in therapy) she retested 10 levels higher. That was amazing progress. Now the resource teacher is using visualizing strategies with her for at least 1 hr/day and I was able to have them write it into her IEP this year. Last year they refused, but this year they said they could write a general form. I called Lindamood Bell and got some language that is commonly accepted in IEPs. “Support for imaging what she reads and hears….” and for amount we calculated 1 hr/day out of her 2hrs/day of resource support. I’m using visualizing for anything I can possibly use it for now. Her reading is improving and as she learns multiplication she is visualizing as well.

Anyway, I hope all is going well with your daughter.

Kathryn

Hi

APD is an indicator of auditory information processing problems, and sequencing issues.
So the orgainsation side are the sequensing problems that exist as part of APD.
Those who have APD alos have poor auditory memory issues,

Those who have APD use the working memory to run coping strategies to work around their sensory information processing problems, and this requires subconscious prioritising of the use of limited working memory space, and other organisational functions have to make way for these APDS coping strategies.

So it is not so much the APD itself more coping with APD yhast causes the problems.

If you are not able to process the output of a teacher in a class because they are onlky using verbal instruction you are bound toi loose the plot, and therefore not be able to understand waht is going on, This has nothing to do with concentration, but everthing to being able to process the information being presented.

Being diagnosed as having APD is one thing but understanding how you have to live APD ius another set of problems again. We all have different strengths and weeknesses to work around these problems.

So APD is the basic problem but therer are so many hidden implication for those who have to live with APD.

The best sources of informatiuon regarding this can be found on the adult APD forums where adults talk about their own experisnces of living with APD, which is different from those who are trying to work out scientific theories about the problem. The realities are different from the consultants ideas.

best wishes

dolfrog
Vice Chair APDUK

Hi

Regarding Jack Katz, have a look at

http://www.audiologyonline.com/articles/article_detail.asp?article_id=1803

best wishes

dolfrog

Hi Kathryn,

I’m so glad your dd is making progress. You are getting her into the right kind of programs. As we had posted/discussed in older threads, I also am convinced that imaging is a very critical ingredient that most programs fail to address. My dd also could not visualize or image any auditory information. To this day, I try to avoid teachers that only ‘talk and lecture’ with no visual ques, or who tend to talk really fast and jabber on about nothing.

We didn’t do LMB V/V, only because there were no local tutors to us and the LBM center was too far a drive and I was just not up to getting trained in yet another program!! LMB Seeing Stars I think would have helped my dd as well. Seeing Stars does more symbol imagery, which my dd lacked as well.

PACE had a visualizing/imaging component to it, which we did and then I just continued to incorporate imaging into her nightly study routine. (ex. spelling words - I had her visualize, air write, spell forward/backward etc. And then imaging while linking key words together. Which she uses ALOT today on her own in her studies.) I also saw improvement from just continuing with sound therapy.

DD is doing great in HS. She had straight A’s on her last progress report and I give her hardly any help anymore. She is pretty self-sufficient now. It’s a far cry from those days when I had to ‘reteach’ her everything from school at night!

Dolfrog - great explanation! Makes so much sense to me. My dd had exactly the auditory processing difficulties you describe. Auditory memory and sequencing were very hard for her.

My dd also had very poor Auditory Discrimination. My gut is there is a direct relatioship between the discrimination and the auditory memory. She couldn’t hear the difference between many of the sounds, which made it very hard to learn sound symbol correlations and I believe that impacted her ability to develop good auditory memory. (But this is just a hunch from my experience with dd).

Do you have any thoughts or experience on that?

Part of her time spent on imaging at school is on the Seeing Stars program. I noticed that she is reading much faster and more fluent in general. I’m happy with her reading progress. She has always been good at sight words because of her strong visual memory, but now that she is reading faster she keeps making the same mistakes with words like on and one, mixing those 2 up all the time and stumbling on “a” and “the”, yet she reads words like beautiful, terrible, understand, etc… with ease…. again, visual memory. Maybe because “a” and “the” are meaningless to her.

I took the V&V training last summer in Sacramento. It was interesting and I’m glad I took it so I have a clue about what they’re doing at school and I can follow their lead and help her with reading comprehension at home. The only thing is that they are using books with a lot of pictures, but I suppose it’s because that’s her reading level. The SLP gives us books to read at home for homework and has us use card stock folded over the pages to cover the pictures so she can’t see them. It forces her to create her own images and she has been doing really well retelling her stories from her images. If she gets stuck we get out paper and pencil and draw a picture real fast to help her remember, but this is not condoned by Lindamood Bell. They don’t want the kids to draw for some reason. I also took the cloud nine math class while I was there and that was interesting. She wants to learn times so badly because of course all her classmates are doing multiplication, so we’re working on skip counting and eventually I’ll move on to multiplication. She can almost complete the entire times table with the exception of 6’s and 7’s and she’s a bit shaky on 8’s. Otherwise she has learned to skip count by all #’s through 12x12.

Kathryn