Auditory Processing

Definition

Difficulty understanding what is said unless the person talking is speaking clearly, very close by and slowly, and there is no background noise.

Services

The Audiologist will evaluate your child's ability to:

• Pay attention to an auditory signal for a period of time (auditory attention).
• Tell the direction of a sound source presented from different directions (auditory localization).
• Understand words that are not completely clear, as when a teacher is not facing the child directly, and the words sound somewhat muffled (auditory closure).
• Understand words in the presence of background noise - softer noise, louder noise, and different background noises - (auditory figure-ground).
• Process two different auditory signals at the same time (auditory maturation, auditory integration, and auditory organization).
• Process a signal that is changing very rapidly (temporal processing). The sounds on any given word change every few milliseconds, as we pronounce the vowels and the consonants that make up the words.
• Remember words (auditory memory). 
• Listen to individual speech sounds, such as "c", "a", "t", and then say what the word was (phonemic synthesis, auditory decoding, and auditory sequencing)

The speech-language pathologist may also evaluate:

• Problem-solving skills.
• Pragmatic language skills (use of language in social situation).
• Reading, writing, and spelling skills.

Hearing Loss in Adults

We will work with adults to explore communication strategies, such as Lip-reading, that can help you participate in your every day, small group and social situations.