Are your kids struggling with learning reading because they have auditory processing difficulties? The cause of their difficulties may be due to CAPD, ADD, dyslexia, a learning disability, a learning difficulty or autism. And the cause (CAPD, ADD, dyslexia, or a learning disability) doesn’t make that big of a difference, the critical piece is that you know they are struggling due to auditory processing difficulties.
It also doesn’t matter if you are tutoring a CAPD, ADHD, or learning disabled student, homeschooling or a concerned parent tutoring your own child. What does matter is that you can make a big difference in your child’s life of learning as you address their auditory processing difficulties with ease. I have compiled seven specific activities you can choose from that will improve auditory processing skills, specifically in the area of auditory discrimination.
These activities will use things you typically have around the house or in the classroom.
These activities can be done at home whether you are homeschooling or helping your child after school. These activities help those children with dyslexia, learning disabilities, ADHD, auditory processing problems such as auditory memory. Teaching strategies are just that, teaching strategies. A strategy can be done by a parent that is interested in helping his/her child improve his/her auditory processing skills.
Discrimination of Sounds
1. Near or far. Start this exercise with your eyes open, and then, once you understand the activity and are able to do it successfully, do it with your eyes closed. Judge which part of the room a sound is coming from, whether it is near or far.
2. Loud or soft. Make a variety of noises, both loud and soft. Talk about them. Identify them as being loud noises or soft noises. Then have your child learn to judge and discriminate between loud and soft sounds with their eyes closed.
3. High and low. Make a variety of noises, both high and low. Talk about them. Identify them as being high- pitched noises or low pitch noises. Then have your child learn to judge and distinguish between high and low sounds.
4. Find the sound. Either you or a sibling or another child in the room hides a music box or ticking clock and the other children try to find it by locating the sound.
5. Follow the sound. The parent or teacher or a child blows a whistle while walking around the room. The child should try to follow the route taken through listening. The child following starts this with their eyes open and once able to do it easily, does it with their eyes closed.
6. Blind man’s bluff. One child in the group says something like an animal sound, sentence, question, or phrase. The blindfolded child tries to guess what it is.
7. Auditory figure-background. To help your child isolate a foreground sound against simultaneous irrelevant environment noises, have him/her listen for the pertinent auditory stimuli against a background of music. You can also do this with the radio on in the background or even the television on (where he or she can’t see it, just hear it) in the background while you are presenting auditory information or stimuli to them.
Just as visual processing and tactile/kinesthetic processing are critical to reading and learning success, so to is auditory processing. Each of those ways is critical to learning success. Auditory processing is a critical component to reading success. Fortunately, there are a variety of materials specifically designed to work on auditory processing at the same time as specific skills such as reading, spelling, note taking, and comprehension. When choosing materials, you want to be sure they will address auditory processing skills such as auditory memory, auditory comprehension, auditory discrimination, auditory closure, and reading comprehension at the same time as teach specific learning skills.
Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., Board Certified Educational Therapist #10167
Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET is a Learning Disabilities Specialist. http://bonnieterrylearning.com.
Ms. Terry helps parents identify, understand, & address the underlying causes of their child’s learning problems. Bonnie has designed a variety of books, games, and guides to make learning reading, writing, spelling, English, and math easy even if you are Dyslexic, have a learning disability, or are ADHD.
By Bonnie_Terry