Hello! This blog is about my daughter Hailey (currently 12 years old) and her experiences living with auditory processing disorder. Auditory Processing Disorder is Hailey's primary issue, however she has also been given the labels Sensory Processing Disorder, Dyslexia, Visual Processing Disorder, Mixed Expressive Receptive Language Disorder and Phonology Disorder at various points in her life.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

APD Awareness: Having APD is sort of like Speaking a Foreign Language

Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) can be subtle and because of this, children with APD are often penalized as being non-caring, not-intelligent, and/or not-attentive.  The reality is so far from this non-understanding viewpoint.

Imagine if you can being in a foreign country.  You know the language to some extent, but you have to process everything you hear from the foreign language to your native language to understand and back to the foreign language to communicate.  It takes time.  Sometimes the person speaking to you doesn't realize this time delay and they speak too rapidly for you to process everything.  Or maybe people are speaking over each other and it is difficult to hear exactly what is being said.  So you process about 2 to 3 words maximum out of every sentence.  You try piecing this fragmented information together to make some sort of sense.  Of course by this time the person speaking to you thinks you are rudely not responding.  Then, when you do say something, the person looks at you like you are a complete idiot because your response is actually not accurate for the conversation.  You try to apologize and explain that you speak a different language and you're doing your best.  But what if they don't believe you?  What if they think you are simply  non-caring, not-intelligent, and not paying attention?  This happens to people with APD all the time!

Of course, just like you can translate the foreign language if given the time you need to do so (and maybe some clarification here and there), so can our kids with APD.  You can also speak intelligent sentences and express your wonderful thoughts and ideas even in the foreign language if given the time to do so.  Sure you might forget a word here or there or conjugate a verb incorrectly, but that's really no big deal so long as the person you are speaking to is understanding and patient.  It is no less important that our children with APD have people be understanding and patient with them.

It is my hope that the world becomes aware of Auditory Processing Disorder and uses that knowledge to show compassion to people with APD.  Be understanding!  Be patient!  Give them the time and respect they need to shine!  They ARE intelligent, attentive, and caring.

6 comments:

  1. Thank you for this wonderful blog about your daughter and APD. This is a hidden disorder affecting so many children. Increasing awareness is key to helping our children.

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  2. Thank you for this wonderful blog about APD... This is a hidden disorder that needs awareness. I am a mother to a sweet 8 year old boy who has APD along with Mixed Receptive/Expressive Language Disorder. Reading your blog brings me comfort knowing we are not alone. :)

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    1. :) Thank you. I'm glad it is serving it's purpose and reaching out to others.

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  3. Thank you so much for this blog. My own daughter who is 11 has APD...this has been so helpful and encouraging to me. I also am homeschooling her but it's not going well. If you don't mind me asking what curriculums do you use with your daughter? I am at a loss as to trying to sift through all the stuff out there that's available. I would love any advice you would offer. Thanks so much!! :-)

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    1. Thank you Sarah. I am glad this blog has been helpful and encouraging. :) I started to write a long reply to you here about curriculum, but then I decided it would be better as a new post. So I posted a piece about curriculum and specifically language arts today. I plan on posting about mathematics tomorrow. I hope you find it somewhat useful. - Bev

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    2. Oh that's wonderful! Thank you so much!! :-)

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