Autism has often associated with auditory processing disorders. Many autistics kids have a hard time following directions, recalling words, inability to focus, reading and tend to be rote learners. The main cause can be impairment of neural pathways of the brain that link the ear with the central auditory system. The ear works properly but the part of the brain responsible for hearing has a hard time interpreting and analysing the information.

What is auditory processing disorder?

A child with normal hearing, when measured on a hearing test, does not seem to “hear well” or understand what is heard. There is inconsistency between hearing and understanding. Even though the sound is heard, processing is disordered in the auditory hearing pathway. Many a times, a child may repeat back but he or she may not understand anything said to them. Children are unable to filter in noisy environment, don’t understand the difference between the sounds, and words, and can be easily over-stimulated or confused by many sounds because they don’t know what to focus on.

What are auditory processing skills?

• Attention: listening to the information
• Decoding: sound or word is then analysed or discrimination
• Association: attaching meaning according to the rules of language
• Integration: putting everything together as a whole that can be used
• Organisation: organising and then, producing a response

Here are some symptoms of auditory processing disorder:

• Have trouble paying attention to and remembering information presented orally
• Have problems carrying out multi-step directions
• Have poor listening skills
• Need more time to process information
• Have low academic performance
• Have behaviour problems
• Have language difficulty (e.g., they confuse syllable sequences and have problems developing vocabulary and understanding language)
• Have difficulty with reading, comprehension, spelling, and vocabulary
• Bothered by loud sounds
• History of chronic otitis media (middle ear fluid)
• History of infancy risk factors for central nervous system dysfunction such as asphyxia, hyperbilirubinemia, meningitis, head injury, severe brain insult (such as intraventricular haemorrhage or hydrocephalus) or seizure disorder

If you or your child is diagnosed with an auditory processing disorder or weak area, your audiologist will help identify management strategies.

Treatment options

(1) Tomatis Listening Program for Autism: Dr Alfred A Tomatis, a French Ear, Nose and Throat specialist 40 years ago discovered Tomatis Method to re-educate the way we listen, to improve learning and language abilities, communication, creativity and social behaviour.

Tomatis hypothesized that the ear can be "re-tuned" to hearing faulty frequencies and that, in turn, can alter one's self-listening and production of sounds. The program consists of two stages: auditory (i.e. receptive, when the person is trained to develop better listening skills) and audio-vocal (i.e. expressive, when the person is trained to develop voice of good quality and tone to maintain listening skills).

(2) Berard Auditory Integration Training or Berard AIT was developed by Dr. Guy Berard, an otolaryngologist (Ear, Nose and Throat or ENT physician) in Annecy, France. He originally invented AIT to rehabilitate disorders of the auditory system, such as hearing loss or hearing distortion (hypersensitive, hyposensitive, or asymmetrical hearing).   

(3) B6 & Magnesium supplements can be helpful to some kids.

The writer is the founder & director of Akhil Autism Foundation. She can be contacted on director@akhilautismfoundation.org

Pic: Chris Greene