Test Your Child
1. Give your child 5 simple instructions, such as:
- Go to your room
- Put on your green jacket
- Get your red notebook
- Put away your toys or Legos (c)
- Then meet me downstairs.
If there is an Auditory Processing problem, then sometime later when you go to your child's room and you find that he or she is still playing, you may get into an argument about how they did not follow your instructions, because, after all, they did not meet you downstairs. Your child thinks they did what they were told, but instead they played with the toy/Legos. Your child may say he/she did do what you said, but you say he/she didn't. When the child heard the word Legos, they immediately think of playing with the toy and they do not process the "put away" part of the sentence.
What happened? The child may have told the truth and really didn't get all the instructions because there was a delay in processing the spoken requests. He/she may have only received 2 out of the 5 instructions. You may not realize that the child thinks he/she did what you requested.
A hearing test may have come out fine; the child may be able to follow instructions in school (by looking at what the other kids are doing). But, if you understand what the problem is, it is fixable.
2. You just saw a movie with your child or read a story together. Ask the child to tell you about the story. The child may have problems such as:
- Not telling you the main idea
- Jumping around, not telling things sequentially
- Becoming fascinated by colors or other details
- Perpetually correcting himself or herself.
There are various methods available to help the child to compensate for such processing issues, which will prevent educational difficulties.
For further discussion, contact me at Stzorfas@gmail.com