Auditory memory and auditory comprehension - does anyone have any info on this?

[coppertop]

These seem to be the areas that ds2 (coming up to 6yrs old) struggles most with. His spoken language is now good but the gap between his receptive and expressive language is getting larger all the time. The SALT has been sending stuff to work on with ds2 and there has been some progress but it's occurred to me that I really don't know all that much about this area.

Ds2 can now just about cope with 3-part instructions but this is a very recent development and he's still quite shaky on it. Individually he seems to understand each part but if put together as a "Do X then Y then Z" he finds it hard. He will remember the X and the Z but the Y will usually be forgotten iyswim. He has a very good visual memory, almost bordering on photographic sometimes, but his auditory memory is poor.

He also has big gaps missing in his comprehension skills. I hadn't realised quite how much was missing until I started doing the SALT stuff with him. I have no idea how he's managed to work around it all before now but he seems to have found his own coping strategies.

His teacher has been following the SALT's advice to break instructions down and check that ds2 has understood but with people in general I've found that the better ds2's expressive language gets the more difficult it seems to be to convince them that he doesn't necessarily understand when they speak to him.

I've tried googling for information on this area but keep getting bogged down by it all. Does anyone have any information in general or recommendations for books, websites etc?

I don't know if it's related but DS1 gets confused with questions. He can answer

What's our cat's name - Molly

What colour is our cat? - Yellow ( she 's gingery)

Then he might answer

What's our cat's name - Yellow

He knows he has to give an answer but gets them mixed up. He also has a photographic memory (for places/directions)

Coppertop, there's several websites you may like to visit, that discuss a condition called Auditory Processing Disorder (APD). Don't be put off by the fact that one of them is about Dyslexia, as it has a section about APD and they can be related.

My daughter has APD - it is thought that 1 in 10 children have it - and the third link is to an article I have written as, despite how common it is, not a lot of professionals in the health and education sector have heard of it. Or if they have, they have no experience in dealing with it.

The gaps that your son has in his "comprehension skills" may be caused by an inability for his brain to process the sounds he hears, rather than a problem with his hearing, which is probably normal. This is why APD is generally referred to as a "listening" rather than a hearing disorder.

I hope the info helps you. You can find it at:

APDUK

Being Dyslexic

Auditory Processing Disorder

Cyber - That does sound similar to ds2. He picks out the words in a sentence/question that he understands and then makes a guess at what the rest of the words might be. A bit like when we first start learning a foreign language and pick out the words we know from a sentence and then try to make a guess at what the rest of the sentence could be about.

AJ - I've looked at the links and a lot of the APD info sounds like ds2. A few things about ds2 are starting to make sense now.

Slightly OT but I also found one of the posts on the dyslexia forum interesting. It was about a link between hyperflexibility and proprioception difficulties. I hadn't made the connection before but it makes sense for ds1.

Thankyou both for your help.

You are very welcome. Yes, the dyslexia forum is very good. I had no idea about how all these conditions can be related until I looked there.

Similar here, ds1 picks out a couple of words in a sentence to respond to and guesses the rest based on visual cues, or his experience of what was expected in similar situations. AJ, replied to you on the other thread but just read your page, it's really interesting and something for me to mention at our next paediatrician visit.

TC - Again that sounds so much like ds2! Even though his spoken language is now good he still can't always seem to work out a way to get the words out. He seems to get stuck in a loop repeating the first few words over and over before finally being able to say the rest of the sentence. A bit like a long-winded stammer, if that makes sense.

He sounds like Kettlechips' ds too.

It's so strange how IRL you never seem to find anyone quite like your own child but as soon as you come on to the SN board you find yourself nodding away at everyone else's descriptions of their own children.

yes - the kids I've met/heard about at group salt/hanen course often seem to have little in common with DS in one way or another - whereas online there are quite a few posters with kids who are similar/were similar to DS at the same age. Sometimes the spooky similarities make you feel less alone

btw DS's teacher doesn't think he has any problems with understanding, and that his expressive language is at a similar level to his classmates now. In structured situations at school he can pass for not having a language problem, which is not entirely a good thing....

yes - the kids I've met/heard about at group salt/hanen course often seem to have little in common with DS in one way or another - whereas online there are quite a few posters with kids who are similar/were similar to DS at the same age. Sometimes the spooky similarities make you feel less alone

btw DS's teacher doesn't think he has any problems with understanding, and that his expressive language is at a similar level to his classmates now. In structured situations at school he can pass for not having a language problem, which is not entirely a good thing....

Tclanger - sorry for delay in coming back to you about referral to Audiologist - your Doctor will be able to arrange this for you, but you have to hope that they have experience of APD. If they just test the hearing and say it is normal, then technically they are correct but keep pushing about APD.