auditory processing disorder misdiagnosed as adhd

Ability to discriminate sounds in the presence of background noiseĪll evaluation measures are based on the basic principle of taxing the auditory system to force the auditory nervous system to work harder.Īt The Hearing Center at Jacksonville Hearing and Balance Institute, we offer a comprehensive testing and evaluation to assess individuals for auditory processing disorders.

Discrimination of individual speech sounds.

APD evaluations typically include a combination of tests that assess different auditory skills, such as: In an APD evaluation, particular attention is paid to the patient’s listening skills. Hearing can be generally defined as the detection or perception of sound, while listening may be defined as the detection and comprehension of auditory information. In summary, auditory processing disorders are disorders in processing information given in the auditory modality when no deficit can be found through traditional audiologic testing.

Social issues-difficulty “reading” others/pragmatic communication issues.Difficulty learning a foreign language or technical information where language is novel or unfamiliar.Difficulty following long conversations.Difficulty following conversation on the telephone.Some common difficulties observed in adults with APD are as follows: Often, APDs are misdiagnosed for attention deficit disorder (ADD) or attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD). APD occurs when there is a breakdown of information traveling along the auditory pathway via the central auditory nervous system.ĪPD can occur due to a number of things, such as head trauma, tumors, auditory deprivation, or even the normal aging process. These individuals may have an auditory processing disorder (APD).Īuditory processes are mechanisms responsible for the following behaviors: sound localization, auditory discrimination, temporal aspects of audition, including temporal resolution, masking, integration, ordering, auditory performance skills in the presence of competing acoustic signals, and auditory performance skills in the presence of degraded acoustic signals (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 1996). Unfortunately, patients with a normal standard audiologic evaluation who report symptoms commonly associated with peripheral hearing loss are often overlooked.

In some cases, however, the audiologic evaluation reveals no peripheral hearing loss on standard test protocols. In the majority of these cases, the audiologic evaluation reveals a peripheral hearing loss that can be successfully treated with a hearing aid. For most patients, communication impairments are most noticeable in difficult listening environments where there is a high level of background noise. Adult Auditory Processing Disorder and Testing in JacksonvilleĪs audiologists, we routinely evaluate and treat patients with communication issues that are secondary to peripheral hearing loss (i.e., damage to the ear that is found on standard audiologic testing).

Auditory processing disorder misdiagnosed as adhd