Many people with APD have deficits due to distortions in how they process and perceive the speech sounds or phonemes they hear. For example, imagine not being able to distinguish whether you hear a /p/ or a /t/ or a /k/ and you hear a person say, "Do you have the car keys?" You may hear that sounding like "Do you have the tar teys?" or "Do you have the par peas?" You may even ask yourself, "What are par peas and why should I have them?"

People who can not readily or easily distinguish or discriminate the differences between sounds of speech, especially similar sounds like the /p/, /t/, and /k/ can become easily confused, frustrated, and overworked. Imagine the constant need to figure out what is being said. Additionally, for people with APD at the phonemic or auditory discrimination level, they are processing word-by-word. This can easily lead to an overload, falling behind when the speaker talks quickly, even if quick is the normal rate of speaking. Imagine how difficult it would be to keep such a high level of concentration working to decode every word. This often leads to the child "shutting down" and appearing inattentive or "spaced out."

What is it like for these people? Let’s try the following simulation. In this simulation, a simple child’s poem will be altered so that what you are reading is changed at the letter (speech sound) discrimination level. That is, some of the letters are incorrect, but have been confused based on a specific rule chosen for the simulation. See if you can decode and figure out what this simple message is.

Twhnkke, tvinjle kitsle rtaq.

Hov I wnnddr wgat wou zre.

Hov I wnnddr wgat wou zre.

Perhaps you can figure out what are the real words in this poem. Make a note of what cued you into figuring it out? You will then realize one of the important strategies we can use or teach to people with auditory decoding/phoneme discrimination problems. Some strategies may be figuring the probability of a word based on the cues that seem to be correct. For example, in the first word in the poem above, we have Twhnkke. If the "Tw" is correct, there are not too many words in the English language that begin with those two letters. Additionally, this word is repeated in line five, so, we can try to see what children’s poem has the same first word in line one and line five and starts with "tw." Additionally, we can narrow down our possible choices of words by the number of letters in the word. For example, one English word starting with "tw" is twin. But, twin is only four letters, maybe five letters if it is plural (twins), and the first words in lines one and five have seven letters. Thus, by elimination and decision-making, twin or twins is not the word if the "tw" is the start of the word and the word has more than four or five letters.

In line two and six, the second word is only one letter. In English, there is a limit to the number of one-letter words, and I is such a word. Thus, the word I in lines one and six appears to be correct. Thus, I have the probability of the second word being I in these lines.

As you go through more and more decoding in this manner, you realize what you are doing involves figuring out or problem solving and decision-making and calling upon memory and experience and knowledge of the words in the English language. Thus, what we need to decode goes beyond mere decoding of the words. (In this simulation, visually, but for people with APD, auditorily.) We apply cognitive processing as well as memory and experiences to help in the decoding process. Therefore, improving decision- making and providing experiences and building a strong foundation for language is critical in helping children with auditory decoding problems.

So, what is the real poem? Let’s learn how to detect the features of the code and you can figure it out yourself. The underlying rule is to pick every third letter and substitute the letter in the alphabet coming before the actual letter in the word. For example, in the word "word," the third letter is "r" and the letter in the alphabet coming before "r" is "q." Therefore, the word would be presented in this simulation as woqd where "q" is misdiscriminated and, thus, substituted for "r."

To help, let’s do the first two words together. If you did not realize it, the first two words, Twhnkke, tvinjle, are actually a repetition of the same word. In the first word, the third letter is "h" and it was substituted for the letter following it in the alphabet, "i," thus the first substitution is "Twh" becoming "Twi." The third letter after the "h" is the second "k." It stands for its preceding letter, "l." Thus, the first word presented as Twhnkke, is really Twinkle. The second word is also twinkle, and the poem is about that little star that a child wonders "what you are."   

View lyrics used for simulation."

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