How Learnigo Advances Your OT Toolkit
September 30, 2024
Learnigo Product Feature: Understanding Speech Despite Distractors Program
Learnigo's Understanding Speech Despite Distractors Program
Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD) is a type of auditory disorder that affects sound processing at the neurological level. Because of this, CAPD impacts the ability to adequately process, integrate, and interpret auditory information. This can present as difficulties with:
- locating sound
- lateralizing sound
- discriminating sound
- processing and understanding speech information
- interpreting speech given background noise
Learnigo’s Understanding Speech Despite Distractors program is an online resource with interactive exercises and worksheets created to target these auditory processing skills, as well as improve attention and memory through auditory stimuli. The program can be used by educators or therapists supporting children with CAPD, as the activities actively train and stimulate higher auditory functions that are often impacted by CAPD.
CAPD: What Are We Looking For? 🔎
CAPD affects approximately 2-3% of children, but it’s likely that this number is higher due to difficulty evaluating CAPD, its co-occurrence with other disorders, and various other barriers to proper diagnosis (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association [ASHA], n.d.).
So, what is important to look for in CAPD? According to ASHA (n.d.), CAPD can manifest as:
- Difficulty localizing sound
- Delayed responses to auditory information
- Becoming easily distracted
- Trouble maintaining attention and focus
- Difficulty comprehending complex instructions, conversations (especially with background noise/other distractors), and rapid speech
- Poor musical and language-learning skills
Of course, these symptoms alone are not cause for worry, but it is important to seek the professional guidance of a speech-language pathologist and audiologist for a proper diagnosis.
Identifying, diagnosing, and treating CAPD is a collaborative, interdisciplinary approach that should involve the above-mentioned professionals as well as the child’s family and teacher(s). Since many children with CAPD struggle with spelling, reading, writing, and understanding oral information, the teacher is a key witness who can provide insight into the child’s abilities in the academic setting (Bellis, 2023).
Strategies to Support Children with CAPD 👂🧠
While there is no one-size-fits all approach when its comes to intervention, research has shown that intervention strategies focused on the following areas are helpful (Bellis, 2023):
- Changing the environment
- Strengthening skills that may compensate for auditory processing deficits
- Directly targeting the auditory processing deficits
Changing the environment: this involves making modifications that support comprehension. For example, it may be beneficial for a child with CAPD to take frequent breaks so as not to get overloaded with auditory stimuli. Ensuring that there is minimal background noise can also help.
Compensatory strategies: this looks like explicitly teaching self-advocacy skills, such as asking the teacher to repeat information, receiving instructions with modified, broken-down steps, and previewing academic material before instruction.
Supporting Auditory Processing skills: Children with CAPD can improve their auditory processing skills by working with an adult who provides multiple opportunities to strengthen these skills via targeted instruction and practice.
Learnigo’s Understanding Speech Despite Distractors Program
The Learnigo Understanding Speech Despite Distractors program is one intervention method that can support strategy #3 mentioned above.
The program systematically targets foundational auditory processing skills such as:
- Sound source location and lateralization
- Sound identification and discrimination
- Recognizing sound features
- Temporal aspects of hearing
- Understanding speech despite distractors
- Understanding distorted speech
In addition, the program is designed to be easy-to-use. The activities are accessible on any screen that connects to the internet–no downloads required. The comprehensive program includes:
- Over 550 interactive screens (games, puzzles, matching, etc.) and 50+ printable worksheets for additional practice and/or homework
- Multiple opportunities to practice target content in a structured way to systematically build skills
- Evidence-based intervention that was created, reviewed, and trialed by SLPs and Audiologists
- Customizable practice, including options to minimize distractions, provide hints, and a progress panel
- Easy descriptions including written and recorded instructions
- Data on progress
The activities are suitable for children ages 5+, but can be adapted based on individual needs. The entire program is flexible so it can be used 1:1 or for group settings, in the classroom or on-the-go.
These examples are just a few of the interactive activities that await you at Learnigo! We invite you to try our free trial! There, you can sample some of the activities in worksheets included in the Understanding Speech Despite Distractors program.
Access the free Understanding Speech Despite Distractors lesson plan here!
If you want more personalized help, schedule a 1:1 call with our product consultants, who can show you the features of Learnigo, help you choose what’s best for your practice, and answer any questions!
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References
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (n.d.). Central auditory processing disorder. Retrieved May 15, 2024, from https://www.asha.org/practice-portal/clinical-topics/central-auditory-processing-disorder/#collapse_9
Bellis, T. J. (n.d.). Understanding auditory processing disorders in children. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Retrieved May 16, 2024, from https://www.asha.org/public/hearing/understanding-auditory-processing-disorders-in-children/
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