Help my daughter might have an auditory processing disorder, as well as verbal dispraxia.

[mummyloveslucy]

Hi, my 4 year old daughter has been recently diagnosed with verbal dyspraxia. She had another acessment a few days ago and the therapist said that she seems to have a problem processing orditory information. She can hear fine, but has difficulties processing it in her brain. She dosn't always respond to whats being said or she miss understands. She can't tell the difference in the way a word is said correctly or incorrectly, for eg she says "Tatty" for "Daddy" but can't hear anny difference between the two.
I've looked on the internet for auditory processing and she does have all the symptems of auditory processing disorder. It makes sence of all of her strange and what I thought was naughty behaviour. I always wondered why she understood me more when there was no background noise, she doesn't like partys if there is too much noise (although she is very sociable)
I would like to know how to go about getting it diognosed. Her nursery teacher has asked us to have her hearing checked as she dosn't respond when she's in the class, but she will if the teacher goes right up to her and looks at her. The doctor said that he didn't think it was her hearing as she had it checked last year and it was fine.
If anyone has any more info on this or has a child with this condition I'd love to hear from you.

When she had her hearing test last year, the room was silent when she did her tests. I don't think they'd pick up auditory processing from that test.

DD2 sounds very much like your DD. My DD2 has Sensory Processing disorder, the main problems are tactile defensivness and Auditory processing. Our OT has her on a sensory diet and we have also just started a 12 week program of 'Therapeutic Listening' and children with Auditory processing disorder are prime candidates for this. There are quite a lot of things out there that you can try to help her along.

What can I try? I'd be willing to do anything!
Who acctually diognoses it? she is seing the consultant paed in april as he's concerned about her development, would he be the best person to ask?

What is a sensory diet?

Our OT dx'd DD2, she is only 20 months by the way. Her SPD has meant she has delayed motor skills and general development so she has weekly physio/OT/SALT/Portage (I think your DD will be too old for Portage). We also see a cranial osteopath who specialises in SN.

DD2 was severely tactile defensive, so her sensory diet consists of deep pressure brushing and various activities to stimulate and regulate her tactile sense. Her auditory processing issues sounds similar to yours. She needs quiet to fully understand and cannot hear her name being called across a busy room unless that person is right in front of her.

The Therapeutic listening is also going to be part of her sensory diet. We are literally only 3 days into a 12 week program so I can't really tell you how it's going but it is meant to have very profound effects. If in the future she needs 'topping up' at times of change for instance we can use it. There are loads of people on this board with great advice, they've helped us no end. Maybe the best bit of advice we got was to read "The out of sync child has fun". It explains it all and great activities to help with each issue. @The out of sync child' is also a good one but more in depth. I must warn you though, after reading it DD2 had more issues than when we started.

It's interesting that it affects physical motor skills as my daughter was delayed in all her milestones. She couldn't sit up untill 9 months, didn't crawl and couldn't move herself around in any way untill 15 months. Now she can't ride a 3 wheeled bike, use scissors, climb and is still not potty trained.
I wondered if it was a bit of physical dispraxia as well as verbal.

That's the same as DD2, started to bottom shuffle at 15months and is not even close to walking yet. Dyspraxia is possible, the out of sync books covers Dyspraxia too as they are so closely linked.

I think a sensory trained OT is the way to go. our Paed hasn't made any dx and is sceptical about SPD, however we see her for an assessment once every 6 months whereas we see our therapists weekly and they know DD2 much better.

out of interest when did you dd walk?

That's amazing that she's been diagnosed at 20 months. You must have been switched on.
I think because she was my first baby, I thought everything would be o.k. I knew she was a bit delayed but thought children vary a lot. Looking back I think I refused to believe anything could be wrong.

She walked at 18 months, but the funny thing was, she was quite stable on her feet.
Even now, she looks quite gracefull in her movements. She walks slowly and carefully and dosn't take risks.

Kids do vary so much, no wonder you didn't think anything was wrong. DD1 (NT) didn't walk til 22mo and I didn't think there was anything wrong with that, just thought she'd do it when she was ready.

I know exactly what you mean, I refused to believe it for ages. I wasn't switched on at all, it all started when she was 6 months and my aunt thought DD2 couldn't hear anything. It lead to a hearing test and yes she was deaf (not any more by the way) and this led to dev assessment with paed etc etc. I was extremely lucky, in a way her being totally deaf was her saving grace. We were also very lucky as the OT we were referred to happened to be sensory trained (not all are) so she spotted DD2's problems straight away.

I hope you don't mind me joining this thread. DD2 has severe speech delay (expressive) and some delay with understanding (been told at the lowere end of normal. However, she has now been refered to the Child development team as there are concerns about gross motor skills and other things. She just turned 3, is still not potty trained and didn't walk until 2 and 2 months.....it just all seems to be snowballing...what are the signs of verbal dyspraxia and how/who would diagnose it? DD2 already has private and NHS SALT.

You were lucky then. It's really good that she's being treated so early on.
Do you know if the APD is something that can be overcome or grown out of? or is it something they'll have for life?

Hi lulurose, of corse I don't mind you joining. I'm glad to speek to other mums in the same boat.
Verbal dyspraxia is dificulty controlling the mouth toungue and vocal coards in order to make the right speech sounds. My daughter also can't lick her lips, spit something out of her mouth and is always biting her tounge which is very distressing for her. (and me)

Thats fantastic, thanks for the links.
I'm sure that's why she's making such slow progress with her speech therapy.

I'd like to know what's going on with her before she starts school. That way the teacher will understand her needs and she'll get the appropriate help. I'll need to know if she'll need a statement too. I think she'll need one to access enough support.
I've concedered home educating her as I'm the only one who understands a fair bit of what she says.

I find that if Lucy is tired or stressed, her speech gets a lot worse.
I've noticed that at partys, she dosn't seem to hear or understand a lot that's being said.

When I looked up the disorder earlier I found out that you can get a device that helps the child tune in to one voice. The teacher wears a small microphone and the child wears a head set and it blocks out all background noise. That sounds good. I'd like one of those now.

Tclanger - thanks for that link to snesory integ website. v interesting.

MLL, I believe APD is not something you grow out of, more that you grow into it (I only know this from the out of sync book I mentioned earlier). It is also the primary cause of dyslexia apparently. There are ways to overcome it or at least deal with it better, the therapeutic listening is one of them as it re-wires the brain and gets the vestibular and auditory systems working together. A sensory trained OT needs to do a sensory assessment to see what your DD's needs are and then set an appropriate sensory diet or technique suited to her. Hope this helps.

TC your links are very helpful x

I've just ordered one of these - a small one

www.quietquilt.com/order.html

I have usually heard of these for ASD children with sleep problems which DS1 does not have but it seems you can use them to improve concentration too - at least I hope so !

My daughter has APD. A normal hearing test does NOT show up APD and you may be told the hearing is normal. And it is! It is the processing of the sounds that is the problem and you need to find an Audiologist who has experience of APD.

We were lucky that we ended up at a Hearing Clinic that had a specialist who knew about APD - this was 5 years ago and hopefully there are more around the country now. However, it is estimated that 1 in 10 children have APD but many are undiagnosed.

I wrote an article that documents our experience, how we got the diagnosis, the strategies we use and there's links to other info.

You can find the article HERE and I hope it helps you.