Auditory Processing Disorder

[HWTA]

I currently work with a child who I now suspect has APD. Have been trying to teach him phonics with no noticeable improvement. I understand that this is not the best approach for him. What is the best way forward to teach him to read.

Are you using jolly phonics? Make sure you do the actions too. I found the easiest way to teach a child like this is to be repetitive with jolly phonics and reading at least everyday with them.

Not using Jolly Phonics. I have been using lots of different activities daily focusing on the sounds satp. Since September he has managed to secure 2 of these sounds. Have also been working on first five tricky words and these he seems more consistent with. I know that it is seen as old fashioned but wondered if focusing on whole word reading would be better for him.

Hi, my DS has auditory processing disorder among many other things (dyslexia, SPD, dyscalculia). Phonics were an absolute waste of space for him. Mind numbingly boring and soul destroying because he simply could not do them. Following the EP's recommendation we did tracking, where I would read at a steady pace and use a pointer so he could follow the words with his eyes, and when he was able to manage that, duet reading where we would read in unison. I chose really lovely fun books - Roald Dahl, Enid Blyton, Judy Blume etc. We totally threw out the window any concept of 'easy' or 'hard' words and chose books because they had great stories. At school he was struggling to make any sense of the very first Chip and Biff books and had become totally disengaged, but as soon as we swapped to 'proper' books his motivation returned. He is 7 now, still severely dyslexic (obviously!), but he actually enjoys reading and has a love of books, which I never thought would be possible.

This is really interesting. My son has ASD, 13, and also struggles to understand the "principles" of phonics, although he can read perfectly well. He has never been able to distinguish the phonic sounds for some reason; his spelling is atrocious, yet he recognises words very quickly when he reads them.

The theory is surely that he does use a form of decoding based on a phonic system, but maybe he is really just remembering words he already has learnt off by heart, visually.

All this time I've been trying to reinforce synthetic phonics but maybe it wasn't the best approach.

Thanks for your replies. I have decided that as I am making so little progress with phonics that I am going to try whole word reading. He is finding it dull even though I try to make it as much fun as possible for him. He gets no pleasure from reading (why would he when he can read only a handful of words). Hopefully with some of your ideas I can instill a least a little bit of pleasure in reading for him.

I would try to make things as very VISUAL as possible! Every phoneme/grapheme accompanied by pictures/actions ie jolly phonics (as a previous poster suggested) and crazy but INCREDIBLY FUN repetition!!!
Also visual pictures/actions alongside those high frequency words ie 'in'... Have games of what's 'in' the box! (Stress on 'in' with pointing and word card alongside.)
'Went' ie games of taking the stuffed toy to different classrooms but relaying to the other children (or post drawing) that the toy 'went' (again pointing action) class 2, school kitchen and office.
Could you use makaton 2 help your pupil...the actions are very easy with practice and could enable you to give a visual clues alongside the sound/word. (Ie 'in' is making :post box hole' shaped left hand and using right hand to act as a letter being pushed 'in'!

Very, very hard work, but in time it will come. Ie if you have been showing multiple pictures (separately but in context) alongside a 'sh' sound, your little man will begin to associate 'sh'...'shop', 'sh'...'shoe'_. 'OK, s and h is 'sh' sound.,'

Hope this helps...another ta (or you may be a teacher) but also mum of child with SEN who certainly cares beyond what the role grants hours/money wise xx

My daughter has APD and other issues. Before she started school we did a lot of work on her speech starting with individual sounds so the concept of splitting words into sounds and blending them was not new, however she could not grasp phonics when she started to read. She is now year 6 and has learned to read mostly through word recognition. She still isn't age appropriate (for many reasons other than just APD) but she still reads better than she might have done if forced to continue with phonics alone.

Just thought I'd add a little- my DD has an auditory processing disorder that made understanding speech and learning to talk very difficult. She never understood phonics but learnt to read by recognising whole words and reading for sense. The good news is that after speech therapy encouraged her to focus and accepting that phonics was not her thing she developed coping mechanisms based on her visual memory. She graduated in History a few years ago, and took herself to USA as an international student during her time at University. APD is still there and at work she carries a notebook to make sure she gets complex verbal instructions/ information down in writing - bosses have been impressed by her attention to detail.....

I believe that the brain has plasticity and given appropriate stimulus, working with children's skills and acceptance that some of us get there by a differant route a lot can be acheived, or maybe we were lucky.