WHAT IS AUDITORY PROCESSING?

Efficient auditory processing is the foundation for oral communication.
There are five primary components of auditory processing:

1. RETENTION AND ORGANIZATION: This component involves the ability to listen to something, remember it and repeat it in the original order. Difficulties in this area limit a person’s ability to follow directions, to remember information and to retell or describe events. There will be difficulty sequencing and organizing one’s thoughts in a conversation. People with deficient retention and organization skills often have trouble completing tasks at home, in school or at work.

2.  AUDITORY DISCRIMINATION: This component enables the listener to differentiate among auditory
signals. Poor discrimination is apparent when a person misunderstands what he hears, confuses one word for another, misarticulates various sounds in his own speech or experiences difficulty in learning to read.

3.  SEQUENCING: This component is directly related to the ability to follow directions. Inattentiveness,
incomplete paperwork and learning difficulties may be directly related to poor sequencing skills.

4.  CONCEPTUALIZATION: Conceptualizing auditory messages enables the listener to give meaning to what he hears. Effective conceptualization is crucial to abstract concepts such as time, direction and space. Disturbances in this area can create the impression that a student is disorganized and unable to adapt to new situations.  Such a student is apt to be considered inflexible, concrete and confused.

5.  SYNTHESIS OF INFORMATION: This auditory processing component is fundamental for pulling together all the language skills that are necessary to communicate effectively. These skills include the ability to learn to read, to anticipate spoken messages, to grasp the main idea of a conversation or story and to fill in missing information in a conversation.