Auditory Processing Disorder (or Central Auditory Processing Disorder – CAPD) is a difficulty in the processing of sound in the brain. Often parents will notice their child’s CAPD difficulties when they see them in the classroom environment. Their child may exhibit listening problems, attentional problems, have difficulty following instructions, struggle to hear in a classroom situation where there is competing noise or chatter, and their literacy skill development lags behind his or her peers.
CAPD is common in children who have experienced recurrent ear infections through infancy or early childhood, as this is the time when the brain is developing sound ‘maps’. We need these ‘maps’ in order to perceive the internal detail of words and then to decode them. From this base we learn to sound out words, match the sounds we hear with letters as we begin to learn to read. From here we integrate all that information in different parts of the brain that allow us to have clear speech, to read, write and spell without difficulty. Ear infections over an extended period can interrupt this development and have longer-term implications for a child’s academic development.
If our testing for CAPD reveals CAPD, we will talk to you about real treatment solutions developed by neuroscientists and verified over many years of research that can make a significant difference for your child at school. Brain retraining using Fast ForWord trains the underlying auditory processing skills in the brain to develop memory, attention, oral language, spelling, sequencing and reading.