NCAPD’s Simulation of Auditory Processing Problems
2004-11-12 15:01

Posted by gwdadmin

Simulation of Auditory Processing Problems
By Jay R. Lucker



When parents, teachers and professionals think about auditory processing disorders (APD) in children, one question that may arise is "What is it like for my child with APD to process information?" To provide some insights into what it is like, the idea of a simulation of processing problems was developed. At first, we wanted to present an auditory simulation, but the technology for presenting such a simulation was beyond the resources (especially financial resources) of the NCAPD at the time. Therefore, a decision was made to create the simulation using written text.

Although the simulation uses written text, the idea is to present linguistic information in a format that would be easy to present, inexpensive to produce, and concrete enough to provide insight into what it is like to have a problem processing information and provide some ideas about strategies that can be successfully used to help children with auditory processing problems.

When considering APD, the bottom line is that the child has a disorder in dealing effectively and appropriately with the information that is heard. There may be a variety of factors that underlie an APD, but some factors are more readily identified than others. Thus, factors such as decoding, auditory attention, memory, and integration are addressed in this simulation. Prior to presenting each factor is a description of the specific factor being addressed. Then, information is presented using specific distortions. After each presentation, the unmodified text is available for view. Additionally, strategies for making it easier to process the distorted information are presented.

To better understand the simulation, here is an example of one of the areas covered. One problem often identified as an area of processing difficulty for children with APD relates to auditory figure-ground or auditory attention. This factor involves difficulties for a child to process the primary or relevant message (such as the teacher’s voice) in the presence of competing, background noises and messages (such as other children in class talking and moving around). In developing the idea for this visual simulation, the primary message was identified as the words of the actual text. Interspersing random letters within the text was used to create the background "noise." For example, consider the following message:

Hello, what is your name?

Imagine adding irrelevant, background noise in the form of random letters within this text.

Heqrtllyuo, washagjkt i’zxcs ycvnmou/12r name?



The idea is to demonstrate what it may be like for a child who has problems idenfying the figure or relevant message in the presence of background distraction. Can you identify the letters from the original message in the distorted message?

This is the idea behind the simulation on the NCAPD website. In this example, after the distorted message is presented, there is a strategy discussed with the outcome from using that strategy presented. The strategy, although based on the visual text, is describe as it would relate to the use of the strategy for improving auditory processing for a child who may have an auditory figure-ground or auditory attention problem.

At the end of the simulation is a feedback form that has been completed by many of the people who have already viewed the site. The two people who created the simulation, Debbie Wood and dr.j! have read the forms. In general, the feedback has been extremely positive, and some of the suggestions have already led Debbie and dr.j! to improve the simulation.

We hope you will visit the NCAPD website, view the simulation and provide your feedback. Use the website to demonstrate to others what it is like to have problems processing information, to gain greater insights yourself, and to learn about some strategies and how these strategies work to make it easier to process information based on the different factors presented. The simulation is reached on the NCAPD website (www.ncapd.org) by scrolling down on the table of contents.