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Diagnosing Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD) is challenging for a variety of reasons. To begin with, the condition isn’t based on the ears’ inability to perceive sounds (specifically speech), but on the brain’s inability to process and interpret them appropriately; this can confound standard hearing tests that measure kids’ ability to hear clicks and tones. Furthermore, children who have Central Auditory Processing Disorder frequently establish coping mechanisms to conceal or mask their disorder; they cannot really understand the words people are speaking, yet they learn to read their lips or their expressions to pretend to understand.
CAPD treatment is challenging for the exact same reasons that the identification is tricky. Any individual working with a child to treat CAPD needs to be mindful of these characteristics. There is currently no generally accepted cure for CAPD, and treatments for the disorder must of necessity be personalized and adjusted to the limits of each CAPD patient. Nevertheless, there are a variety of therapy protocols which are considerably improving childrens’ learning prospects.
These methodologies are usually described using three broad categories – environmental change, compensatory strategies and direct treatment.
Compensatory Strategies – Strategies that concentrate on helping the CAPD pupils to strengthen their language, memory, problem-solving and attention skills are generally known as compensatory strategies. The main focus of the compensatory strategies is to teach skills that generally improve learning and academic success while also training CAPD students to take responsibility for their own academic progress. Practice sessions designed to improve these types of skills generally consist of “active listening” exercises or solving word problems.
Environmental Change – Because background noise drastically hinders an individual with CAPD’s ability to comprehend speech, decreasing the level of environmental noise via soundproofing, such as curtains, acoustic tiles and wall hangings, will help. Another tactic is selectively augmenting the voice of the instructor in a school room. The teacher wears a microphone and the CAPD student wears a small receiver. This combination helps make the instructor’s voice more distinguishable from other voices and sounds in the room.Even improved lighting may help, because a dimly lit instructor’s face is not as easy to scan for hints as to what they’re saying as a fully lit face.
Direct Treatment – 1-to-1 sessions and computer-assisted learning programs belong to the category of direct treatment. These strategies depend on the brain’s inherent plasticity and ability to develop new neural pathways and abilities. Software and games such as Hasbro’s “Simon” game or Scientific Education’s “Fast ForWord” educational software are used as treatment tools. These activities help learners improve discrimination, sequencing and processing of auditory signals. Some professionals use dichotic training to cultivate the childrens’ ability to hear many sounds in different ears and process them correctly, while others use Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s “Earobics” program to develop an awareness of phonemes.
The good thing is that there are therapy options for kids with CAPD. However, an accurate early diagnosis is vital to the long-term success of most of these techniques. If we might help in any way with this, please phone or email us. I want to add our many years of hearing experience and partnerships with local CAPD experts to helping your child learn properly.
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