Jj is for Jottings 136.  Developing Auditory Processing Skills.

Following on from the article on auditory skills, we turn to the topic of developing auditory processing skills.  An article on communication milestones from 12 months to 5 years can be found here.   But now we will explore the development of auditory processing skills in a little more detail.

AUDITORY PROCESSING.

The term auditory processing refers to how the brain perceives and interprets sound information.  We need a number of skills to successfully process the sounds we hear.  The necessary skills fall into four categories, and they develop loosely in a hierarchy.  But as with all other areas of development, there are no hard and fast rules – children develop not according to rules, but according many and varied internal and external factors.  Still, we can draw generalisations.  These skills all work together for successful auditory processing.  Following are auditory processing skills according to this general hierarchy.

AUDITORY PROCESSING SKILL # 1.  AUDITORY AWARENESS.

This is the ability to detect sounds.  Here is a simple listening activity to practise this basic skill, which underlies all other auditory processing skills.  There are two other skills which fall under this heading.

Sound Localisation. 

This is the ability to locate the source of the sound you hear.  You can add to the listening activity above by encouraging the child to point to the direction from where each sound came.  Sound localisation is important in safety; for example when crossing a road.  It’s important to be able to localise just which corner you can hear that truck approaching from, because it is not yet in view.

I have observed that sound localisation deteriorates with age, and a quick check of the research confirms this.  Hardly surprising, really.

Auditory Figure-Ground.

This is the ability to attend to important auditory information including attending in the midst of competing background noise.  A child with this ability can focus on his mother’s voice in a noisy place or listen to what the teacher is saying even though there are children talking around him or noises outside the window he is seated beside.  It assumes that the child knows what is important information and what is irrelevant.

You can practise this skill by asking your child to perform various activities whilst deliberately introducing background noise, such as the radio, music, a kitchen appliance, other family members talking, etc.  It would be interesting to see whether your child can switch off some background noises more successfully than others.

AUDITORY PROCESSING SKILL #2.  AUDITORY DISCRIMINATION.

This is the ability to detect differences between sounds.  The sounds fall into in various categories, which are:

Auditory Discrimination of Environmental Sounds.

This is the ability to detect differences in sounds in the environment.  Refer to the listening activity mentioned above.

Auditory Discrimination of Suprasegmentals.

This sounds daunting, but simply refers to the aspects of speech other than the speech sounds themselves: rate, volume level, stress, intonation (the rise and fall of the speaker’s voice), and length.  This may not sound important, but in fact we unconsciously gain a great deal of meaning from these aspects of speech – beyond the literal meaning of the words.  Reading something, especially if it is not properly punctuated, can lead to misunderstanding of the writer’s intention.  Hearing them speak the same words can lead you to realise that the speaker was actually joking, for example. It can also give clues about the speaker’s attitude about what they are saying or to whom they are speaking.

At a basic level, young children learn that rising pitch at the end of a sentence usually denotes a question. (Although, increasingly, some people have a habit of doing that at the end of most sentences, not just questions.)  They learn that stressing different words changes the meaning of a sentence.  For example, “Don’t ask me for an ice cream” versus “Don’t ask me for an ice cream.”  In the first instance, I would let the matter drop.  (But of course a child might not!)  In the latter case, I would go and ask the other parent and see if I had better luck there.

Auditory Discrimination of Segmentals.

The ability to discriminate the differences between speech sounds.  See posts on auditory discrimination of vowel sounds and vowel discrimination activities.

AUDITORY PROCESSING SKILL #3.  AUDITORY IDENTIFICATION.

This is the ability to attach meaning to sounds and speech.  Skills involved here are:

Auditory Feedback/Self Monitoring.

This is being able to change speech production based on information you get from hearing yourself speak.  Of course, first you have to listen to yourself.

Phonological Awareness.

This topic is covered in this article.

AUDITORY PROCESSING SKILL #4.  AUDITORY COMPREHENSION.

The ability to understand longer auditory messages, including engaging in conversation, following directions, and understanding stories.  Necessary skills include:

Auditory Closure.

This is making  sense of auditory messages when a piece of auditory information is missing i.e. filling in the blanks.  You can make up auditory closure exercises on the spot, perhaps playing games in the car.  For example, you could say: “The little girl was wearing a pink …” Any sensible answer is acceptable.  Match your sentences to your child’s language level and increase their length as the child skill increases.

Auditory Memory.

The ability to retain information both recently (short term memory) and after a delay.  The article on auditory sequential memory gives further information on this topic.

Linguistic Auditory Processing.

This is basically the executive function described in the article on auditory memory above.

As you can see, from babyhood onwards, children have many auditory processing skills to learn and co-ordinate in order to become good listeners, readers and learners.  It is helpful for parents and caregivers to be aware of the necessary skills and to play games to aid their development in this vital area of communication.

 

Check out the Facebook page: Aa is for Alpacas.