Can you think of a more catchy title than that? Sounds like this next session is going be introducing activities to target individual auditory systems.
Here we go! Auditory processing refers to the skills we use to interpret and organize auditory stimulus that we hear. Typically developed between 7-8 years of age. Auditory processing disorder is defined as a difficulty listening to or comprehending auditory information despite having normal peripheral hearing sensitivity. Reduced or impaired ability to discriminate, recognize or comprehend auditory information.
This isn’t children who have difficulty hearing, it’s children who have the ability to hear fine, but just can’t process the information that’s coming in. It’s easy to see how this sort of thing could be overlooked in a school. A typical hearing test just won’t pick up on this.
Children with this disorder typically misunderstand oral instructions/questions, or it there is a obvious delay between the question and the response. They have a lot of difficulty listening when background noise is present.
HSAS is non-verbal stimulation (music) to enhance auditory skills. Used with children who have learning difficulties, especially reading. Interestingly, the CD’s that they use are individually made. After testing, they customize the content based on the child’s deviation from the optimal hearing curve. They do this by amplifying frequencies below the curve and attenuating frequencies above the curve. Children listen to the CD for 15 minutes a day for several months. Then they come back in, get retested and get a new CD created. After a certain point, they get a maintenance CD that they do a few days a week for up to a year.
I always wonder how effective these passive devices actually are. It almost sounds like learning by osmosis. You know, just put your textbook under your pillow and the answers will just come to you! Or those exercise devices where you don’t have to do anything at all, electrical stimuli will exercise your muscles for you and the fat will just disappear. Does passive absorption of this nature really make a difference or does there need to be some sort of conscious action as well? I’d love to see some of the research, how this compares to a ‘placebo CD’, someone who does the exact same program but with a normal CD. Is there really a difference? I’d imagine that there must be, but I’d love to find out for certain.