Durrani Foundation

Basis for Central Auditory Processing Disorder (APD)

webmaster — Tue, 10 May 2011 02:54:34 +0000

Auditory processing disorder: The sense of hearing is very complex. There are various auditory skills that must be present in order for us to listen well. Central auditory processing disorder (CAPD) will result when any of the following skills are missing or may be defective.

Auditory Memory – ability to receive, process, store, and recall auditory information
Auditory Discrimination – ability to distinguish between sounds and words that are similar
Auditory Scene Analysis – ability to separate sounds when a large mixture of sounds is present
Auditory Figure-Ground – ability to perceive speech and particular sounds with a noisy background
Auditory Attention – ability to maintain focus and concentration during listening tasks
Auditory Cohesion – ability to understand meaning, inference, abstraction and intention of conversation and music.

This skill is a higher order function involving tone, facial expressions and body language often present for individuals with Asperger’s Syndrome.

Auditory Closure – ability to fill in missing pieces of sounds and words
Auditory Anticipation – ability to expect forthcoming sounds and words
Auditory Temporal Processing – ability to analyze the timing and pattern of sounds
Amplitude Perception – ability to perceive loudness or intensity of sounds
Frequency Perception – ability to split sounds into frequency bands
Sound Localization – ability to identify the source of sound
Auditory Temporal Processing – ability to analyze timing and pattern of sounds

As a result of auditory distortions, which occur when, sound is perceived incorrectly, a child may demonstrate inappropriate behaviors. These auditory distortions will cause a stress response, which may lead to withdraw and become depressed, or the child may try even harder and become anxious. Also, a child may act silly and or clown around in order to obtain a sense of belonging to the group or the child may become frustrated leading to anger and aggression.

The sense of hearing is very complex. There are various auditory skills that must be present in order for us to listen well. Central auditory processing disorder (CAPD) will result when any of the following skills are missing or may be defective.

OTHER POSTS DEALING WITH APD: Students with various learning disabilities may have processing issues. We have to take information in, make sense of it, retrieve information, and then be able to relay information back. Various kinds of learning disabilities interfere with steps in this process, and the interference can happen at more than one step, especially when a person has more than one kind of difficulty. Let’s take the subject of, “Answering a question asked of you”. Most people assume that this is really simple, and thus, easy. Hah! How Hard Can It Be? Helping the awkward new student seemed like a good idea, so why did it make everything worse? Help was apparently something that is done to you and for you; I was the passive recipient for help.

They were strangely disempowering, these activities that were ostensibly for my benefit: Being the Class Project: Reflections Upon False Inclusion. Why I only appeared noncompliant and dishonest, and how I got into trouble for cheating on the reading worksheet: Failing to Cheat. What’s really going on when you ask someone a question and get that familiar, “Huh?” More importantly, what can we do to help prevent such situations? Try using Headlining. How bad does it have to get? At what point does a student’s difficulties with schoolwork demonstrate that they are having significant problems, and therefore need help? Should a student have to fail classes before someone realizes or decides that there is a problem? A, B, C, D and F. You know, ALL the students would be able to hear and see the videos and other projected notes if the classroom were just designed better: Classroom Audio/Visual: Spectacular or Just A Spectacle? Sometimes life has its funny moments. One of the problems with my Auditory Processing Disorder is that I cannot understand most song lyrics. There are only a few performers whose vocal range, diction and instrumental styles mesh to create songs that have intelligible lyrics, rather than what I usually hear, which is music with words mingled (or mangled) into the sounds of the instruments. There are some songs that are notorious for being misunderstood by lots of people; apparently entire audiences mis-heard Jimi Hendrix sing, ‘Scuse me while I kiss this guy in “Purple Haze”. The difference is that I misunderstand almost every song I’ve heard, like this one.

One of the problems we run into, sometimes unexpectedly so, is that our Assistive Devices do not “fix” the problem and make it go away. This is discouraging for the person who is newly diagnosed or newly treated for an issue, and who hoped that simply by getting some snazzy piece of equipment, everything would “be back to normal”. But it’s NOT the same. Captioned (subtitled) television isn’t just for the Deaf and hard of hearing — it’s also great for people with APD, and those for whom English is a second language: Is it CC? Those great folks at public television station WGBH in Boston, are going to work on providing captioning for all those teeny-tiny screens, our iPods, PDAs, mobile phones and other hand-helds. More Captions, w00t! One of our strengths as a couple is that we are so different from each other. It’s not that one of us must “make up for” the deficiencies of the other — that would put us into artificial dichotomies of able and disabled, forever relying upon the other in our respective rôles of an incomplete person needing the other to complete them. Rather, it’s that each of us could manage alone as competent individuals, but that together we enrich the other’s experiences of the world. Social Captioning. On the home front, we’ve recently adopted a new-to-us AT, and it took some nudging from me to get hubby to participate. Soon we were texting messages instead of talking on the phone.

We were actually communicating more information, and doing so more often. We also found that what the missives may have lacked in warm fuzzy voice tones, they made up for in reduced marital stress: Read My Clips. I hate puzzling out voice-mail! Recess: Sunday Funnies. Everyone in life has to compensate in some manner or another, because no one excels at everything. In fact, the economy depends upon people’s interdependency — earning your living doing things for others is important to the Gross National Product, is important to a town’s sense of community, and is important to a person’s self-worth from feeling useful. The problem with over-compensation is that although I have at times felt that I had vanquished my personal demons of incompetancy by having overcome various failures with landmark achievements, those successes do not mean that I cannot or will not have future problems! Running With the Red Queen. The person with APD prepares for a job interview: Welcome to the First Ring of Hell.

ADHD Diagnosis

Salwa Rashad — Sun, 01 May 2011 06:48:49 +0000

There is no definite test or x- ray that can be used to diagnose ADHD. All the diagnosis tools are subjective, and don’t take into consideration the environmental or the mood factors that can affect the brain activities. For example a child who is angry about his parents’ divorce will not be able to focus at school and probably will behave impulsively because of his/her psychological state rather than a biological disorder. There are more than 50 other health problems that have symptoms mimic ADHD symptoms. However many health professionals are not checking to rule out other conditions that a child might have, and rush into diagnosing ADHD and prescribing drugs. Consequently, millions of children are misdiagnosed and treated with drugs every year.

ADHD Dilemma

Salwa Rashad — Sun, 01 May 2011 06:47:08 +0000

If you are a parent or a grandparent who was told by a teacher, a physician or a psychiatric that your child, who looks normal to you, has a mysterious disease or disorder that is called ADHD (Attention Deficit Disorder), you probably are confused, frustrated and overwhelmed. You are trying to know what to do to improve the odds of your child. You want to do what ever it takes to save your child from being a failure at school, on the job or in relationships. Statistics and experts opinions predict a gloomy future for ADHD people. Are you considering using medications as your doctor recommend? Are you looking for safer alternatives?

Is Medication a cure forADHD?

Salwa Rashad — Sun, 01 May 2011 06:45:34 +0000

Many experts in the medical field will tell you drugs is the only effective proved way to treat ADHD. They may or may not briefly mention any short or long term side effects. They might make you believe that your child will take this magic pill and turn to a generous who will have all A’s and behave like an angle obedient child. No word will be said about long term impact of medication. No one will tell you how much gain your child will have and what risks he will experience by taking this medication for life time. So you can make a simple risk benefit analysis and make an educated decision about the treatment method that you will use for your child. No doctor will tell you about treatment alternatives. Even there are several ones that are used for decades with successful lasting results without side effects. The question that is nagging in the head of everyone is how parents, given the whole truth and complete information, would accept putting their child under the risk of addiction, suicidal thoughts, growth stunt, and even sudden death for little or no long term gain. While there are alternatives that when they work, actually eliminate the symptoms permanently even after the intervention stops. The answer to this question is most of the parents are not aware of the serious risks of medication and they have no clue that there are other treatment alternatives that are safe and might cure the problem.

Searching for Information ON ADHD

Salwa Rashad — Sun, 01 May 2011 06:22:45 +0000

In the information age, we have no excuse not to search for the up to date methods to deal with our health problems. We cannot afford over trusting our doctors who are too busy to follow new advances in treatment alternatives and are satisfied with their conventional medical education. You don’t have to be a medical school graduate to read and understand the risks and the side effects of stimulant medication prescribed to temporarily manage ADHD symptoms for few hours. All these information are posted clearly on the FDA website and on the web site of the pharmaceutical companies that manufactures the drugs.

If you do your duty towards your child that God entrusted him under your control, by reading and searching, you will probably be flooded with tons of information that you might be skeptical about its validity, because of the financial motivation of their sources. Here, as non- profit, unbiased identity, who is only searching for the truth about this critical issue that touches the lives of millions of our children and their families, we will try to explore the available information about the treatment of ADHD. Please add below any comment or idea about personal or professional experience related to ADHD. Your input will be helpful to shed some light on the path of developing the best course of treatment. Are there other treatment alternatives that are safer and might cure the problem?