STATEN ISLAND CENTRAL AUDITORY PROCESSING DISORDER THERAPY

We travel to the following Staten Island neighborhoods: Annadale, Arden Heights, Arlington, Arrochar, Bay Terrace, Bloomfield, Brighton Heights, Bulls Head, Castleton Corners, Charleston, Chelsea, Clifton, Concord, Dongan Hills, Egbertville, Elm Park, Eltingville, Emerson Hill, Fort Wadsworth, Graniteville, Grant City, Grasmere, Great Kills, Greenridge, Grymes Hill, Hamilton Park, Heartland Village, Huguenot, Lighthouse Hill, Livingston, Manor Heights, Jefferson, Mariners Harbor, Meiers Corners, Midland Beach, New Brighton, New Dorp, New Springville, Oakwood, Old Place, Old Town, Pleasant Plains, Port Ivory, Port Richmond, Prince’s Bay, Randall Manor, Richmond Valley, Richmondtown, Rosebank, Rossville, Saint George, Sandy Ground, Shore Acres, Silver Lake, South Beach, Stapleton, Stapleton Heights, Sunnyside, Todt Hill, Tompkinsville, Tottenville, Tottenville Beach, Travis, Ward Hill, West New Brighton, Westerleigh, Willowbrook, Woodrow.

Assessing and treating CAPD requires a multidisciplinary team, but diagnosis can only be made by an audiologist. During the evaluation, the audiologist measures the child’s specific auditory processing functions. This is done through a series of tests in a sound-treated room. The child will then be asked to listen to various signals and respond to them. A child must be at least 7 or 8 years old to ensure that they are mature enough to understand and take the test.

Together with an audiologist, a speech-language pathologist (SLP) should be part of the diagnosis by conducting complete speech and language assessments of the child. An SLP can also help determine the precise nature of the disorder and its implications. Psychologists also play an important part, as well, to rule out any attentional or learning difficulties which play a part in auditory or listening skills.

Once a diagnosis has been made, an SLP is the best professional to carry out the intervention. Speech-language pathologists can give explicit training and develop strategies to help the child identify, remember, and sequence sounds. The goals of therapy are to:

• improve the child’s auditory processing abilities
• provide the child with compensatory strategies to facilitate his/her listening to speech
• modify the learning environment, e.g., working with the school and parent.

Read about Early Childhood Developmental Milestones.

In many instances, central auditory processing disorder is confused with receptive language disorder and listening difficulties. This is due to the overlap and similarities of some of their signs and symptoms. Early receptive language development is characterized, for example, by how well children follow directions, answer questions, and understand words. Delays in early receptive language development are characterized by the child relying on visual information to process spoken words, e.g. parents points to the garbage can and the child understands that the point means to place the tissue in the garbage. To know more about receptive language disorder, please click here.

At Brooklyn Letters, several of licensed speech-language pathologists are trained in CAPD intervention. We asked Ewa, a speech-language pathologist we work with, about auditory processing listening programs. She is a highly experienced CAPD expert. Here is what she had to say: “Integrated Listening System program is based on and similar to auditory integration therapy and the Tomatis method. However, there has been a lack of consensus regarding its efficacy. This is also true for auditory integration therapy.”

There is also Therapeutic Listening, which is done by occupational therapists.  I know this is geared for children and targeted for greater sensory-motor integration. The idea of these therapies is listening to music that has been filtered or modified to increase attention, self-regulation, communication, etc.

SLPs can provide auditory therapy to increase speech sound perception. I have done this to increase speech perception in children with auditory processing disorders. I have also incorporated different types of noise at varying volumes to increase the child’s ability to ignore the noise and attend to the spoken information in order to better understand, integrate, and respond appropriately. Audiologists who specialize in auditory processing disorders may also do auditory therapy in a soundproof booth for speech sound perception.

Assessing and treating CAPD requires a multidisciplinary team, but diagnosis can only be made by an audiologist. During the evaluation, the audiologist measures the child’s specific auditory processing functions. This is done through a series of tests in a sound-treated room. The child will then be asked to listen to various signals and respond to them. A child must be at least seven or eight years old to ensure that they are mature enough to understand and take the test.

Together with an audiologist, a speech-language pathologist (SLP) should be part of the diagnosis by conducting complete speech and language assessments of the child. An SLP can also help determine the precise nature of the disorder and its implications. Psychologists also play an important part, as well, to rule out any attentional or learning difficulties which play a part in auditory or listening skills.

Once a diagnosis has been made, an SLP is the best professional to carry out the intervention. Speech-language pathologists can give explicit training and develop strategies to help the child identify, remember, and sequence sounds. The goals of therapy are to: