4 year old - poor understanding at nursery

[pickledsausage]

My son is doing well at nursery apart from one thing they’ve mentioned a few times - they think that he doesn’t understand them when they’re asking him to do things - eg sit on the mat for story time, put your shoes on, time to tidy up.

At home he’s absolutely fine - totally understands, doesn’t always want to do it, but we get there eventually! I just wondered if anyone had experienced anything similar? We’re taking him for a hearing test at their request but the kid can hear a packet of biscuits rustle from 100m away
I’m not sure if it’s his way of rebelling - not confident enough to say no to the teachers so just ignores them? OR if it could be something else?

Hearing a packet of biscuits rustle and hearing voice are two very different things, two very different frequencies. It would not be unusual for a child to not be able to hear a person speaking (they would just hear a muffled sound) yet hear a phone vibrating in a different room...

Thank you for responding. Is it possible then that he hears perfectly at home, but at nursery with more noise etc, it’s more of a struggle?

My middle one has a auditory processing disorder, so finds/found instructions difficult to follow if there is a lot of background noise or if there are too many instructions all at once. It's pretty common.

Ask them to try and sit him at the front of the carpet and make sure there are not too many "steps" in the instructions.

NB: DS is pretty good now, but still needs to sit at the front and not next to someone too noisy. He used to have a little whiteboard to write down complex instructions when he was younger.

Yes, it's possible he struggles with background noise (either from an auditory processing point of view or just from a focus point of view), rather than simply not hearing certain frequencies. It's also possible that he does struggle with hearing certain sounds, but finds it easier to compensate at home. Perhaps you gesture more, or if he's learnt to lip-read a bit, you're likely to be closer to him and looking specifically at him more when you speak.

Of course, it's also possible he understands, but is choosing not to comply. You could ask if he seems to understand when it's instructions he's likely to want to follow, such as getting ready for his favourite activities, although I'd have thought experienced nursery staff would have spotted if, say, he seems to understand 'let's get the paints out' perfectly, but not 'time to tidy up'.

So could this be something that could be worked on and can be improved over time/grow out without compromising his development or is it always going to be like this throughout his life where he always has to sit at the front etc?

@lillelilou

So could this be something that could be worked on and can be improved over time/grow out without compromising his development or is it always going to be like this throughout his life where he always has to sit at the front etc?

He's 13 now and still needs to sit at the front, but otherwise academically he's fine - top set for maths and science.

He's absolutely awful at foreign languages - speaking and listening, so we chose a school where he doesn't need to sit one.

Oh and we went to a barn dance recently and he was awful at that too, but apart from that he doesn't have any adjustments.