Processing Disorders

LANGUAGE PROCESSING

Children with difficulties in language processing might have slow development of vocabulary concepts. They often have delayed receptive and/or expressive language development. Articulation and phonological development may be delayed. Immature grammar with persistent error patterns are demonstrated in their sentence structure. Sentences or thoughts are incomplete. Understanding and using “Wh”- questions are slow in development. Short term memory may be ineffective. Word retrieval problems may be significant. Children use fillers “uh” to buy time or frequently answer “I don’t know”, “what” or “I forgot”. The Development of social language skills is slow. There is a poor awareness of conversational rules. Learning is inconsistent and extensive review of previously learned material is required.

AUDITORY PROCESSING DISORDER

The term Central Auditory Processing (CAPD) can be defined as the ability to receive and integrate auditory information. If your child has an Auditory Processing disorder they have normal pure-tone hearing. They may have a history of ear infections and have difficulty hearing with background noise or localizing sound. Your child may request repetitions and often ask “huh” or “what” Your child may fatigue easily and have a short auditory attention span. Following auditory directions may be difficult. Children have academic deficits (phonics, reading, and spelling). CAPD is a sensory processing deficit that commonly affects listening, spoken language comprehension, and learning.

LEARNING DISABILITIES

Most learning disabilities are a result of processing deficits that interfere with the child’s verbal expression and language comprehension. Approximately, eighty percent of learning disabilities are found in children who have language processing disorders. These children have difficulty attaching meaning to an auditory stimulus even if the signal is fully received. Children may lack the skills required for one or more of the following: Listening, speaking, reading, written expression, spelling, writing legibly, putting things in sequence, reasoning/problem solving, and mathematical ability. Children with reading comprehension or written expression have difficulties using language to communicate. They lack verbal reasoning and problem solving skills necessary to make inferences, associations, summarize, paraphrase, see cause and effect relationships or make predictions. A learning disability is not a problem of intelligence. A child with a learning disability cannot try harder, pay more attention, or improve motivation on their own. They need skills and help to learn how to do these things.