What is APD?
Auditory Processing Disorder (APD), also referred to as Central Auditory Processing Disorder (C/APD), is the inability to attend to, discriminate among or between, recognize, or understand auditory information. APD is a sensory processing deficit that can negatively impact listening skills, spoken language, comprehension, learning and even social skills. APD is a dysfunction within the central auditory nervous system. Some children have a hard time with letter reversals; they may flip /b/ and /d/ for example. It is not that the letters are blurry; the brain is not perceiving or visually processing the information accurately. The same analogy can by applied for APD. A child may be able to “hear” just fine, but the brain’s ability to process what it hears is not functioning properly. The disorder frequently goes undiagnosed. Children with APD usually will pass a hearing test. APD can be misdiagnosed as Attention Deficit Disorder. Typically APD co-exists with other disorders including AD/
