Can you recommend any technology to help my son with Central Auditory Processing Disorder?

Because individuals with auditory processing disorders mishear or misinterpret auditory information — particularly when in a noisy environment — they can struggle with academic tasks. Reading and writing may be especially challenging as students with CAPD can struggle with differentiating sounds and syllables. Students with CAPD may also:

• have trouble remembering information that is presented orally,
• have difficulty following multi-step directions
• have language difficulties
• struggle with reading, writing, comprehension, and spelling

See the article, Auditory Processing Disorder in Children, for more information about how CAPD affects learning.

Several technologies are available to help students with CAPD. If students are having difficulty remembering information presented orally, teachers may opt to record lectures for students so they can listen to them again later. Students may also use an auditory trainer(opens in a new window). Teachers wear a microphone and students are able to listen to the teacher’s lecture directly using a headset. This set up allows students to filter out background noise and focus only on what the teacher is saying.

For difficulties with reading, several software programs may be helpful. Often, students with CAPD can benefit from activities designed to improve phonemic awareness, syllable and word recognition. You might try looking at programs like Earobics or Fast Forward(opens in a new window). OutLoud+(opens in a new window) is a program designed specifically for individuals with CAPD to help with following oral directions. The article, Learning to Read with Multimedia Materials(opens in a new window), features a variety of suggestions for technology tools to teach phonemic awareness, phonics and word recognition, comprehension and fluency, many of them free.

You can also find suggestions for reading software (as well as other content areas) in the Tech Matrix(opens in a new window), a product of CITEd(opens in a new window) and the NCTI(opens in a new window).