Hearing and Auditory

Processing:
Its Importance and
Impact on Your Child

LOUISE LEVY M.S. AUDIOLOGIST

 Contact Information
 Louise Levy
 863 Park Avenue #1E
 New York, New York
10023
212-472-1350
Hearlevy@aol.com
 Hearing
vs.
Auditory Processing
 Hearing includes the:
 Outer ear and ear canal
 Middle ear (eardrum & ossicular chain)
 Inner ear (cochlea)
 3 TYPES OF HEARING LOSS

 Conductive hearing loss

 Sensory neural hearing loss
 Mixed hearing loss- a combination of
both conductive hearing loss and
sensory neural hearing loss
 Conductive Hearing Loss

 Includes the Outer ear

Ear canal
Middle ear
 External conductive hearing loss

 Swimmer’s ear
 Q-tip overuse
 Wax build up
Causes of Conductive Hearing Loss in
the Middle Ear

 Anatomy of the middle ear

 Eustachian tube dysfunction which then causes
FLUID!!!!!!
 Allergies to dairy
 Disconnect of the ossicular chain
 Dairy

A study done in the early 1990’s

where 90% of ear infections went
away when dairy was eliminated
 Dairy and soy have proteins that
the body reacts to and can
cause fluid
 50% of children react to dairy and soy

 Another option may be rice milk….

 Before age 3, 10-20% of children will
have at least 3 or more episodes of
otitis media…..

Department of Education
 American Academy OF Otolaryngology
and Pediatrics
 “distinguish the child with OME who is at risk for
speech, language or learning problems from other
children with with OME and more promptly
evaluate hearing, speech, language and the need
for intervention”.
WHEN A CHILD HAS SPECIAL NEEDS…
…

WE MUST BE MORE AGGRESSIVE AT

ELIMINATING FLUID!!!
 Sensory Neural Hearing Loss

 A Sensory Neural hearing loss is when

there has been damage to the hair cells
within the cochlea
The hair cells are responsible for detecting
pitch specific sounds and sending the
auditory stimuli to the brain for decoding
 Mixed Hearing Loss
 A combination of both a conductive
hearing loss and a sensory neural
hearing loss
 IF HEARING IS NOT EXCELLENT,
STRONG AUDITORY PROCESSING
SKILLS WILL NOT DEVELOP……
Auditory processing now takes over…..
 AUDITORY PROCESSING

IT IS THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM

AND THE BRAIN THAT MAKES SENSE OF
THE INFORMATION SENT FROM THE EAR
OR
WHAT WE DO WITH WHAT WE HEAR!!!!!
PIC OF CNS AND BRAIN
 The Temporal Lobe

 The temporal lobe is divided into 2 sections:

1. Left temporal lobe
2. Right temporal lobe
The lobes are connected via the corpus callosum, a
tract of fibers that are covered in a myelin sheath
 The left side of the temporal lobe specializes in
speech and more analytic information
The right side of the temporal lobe handles
vision and more gestalt information
 AMERICAN SPEECH LANGUAGE
HEARING ASSOCIATION DEFINES
AUDITORY PROCESSING AS
LOCALIZATION
AUDITORY DISCRIMINATION
AUDITORY PATTERN RECOGNITION
TEMPORAL DISCRIMINATION
DICHOTIC LISTENING/INTEGRATION
AUDITORY PERFORMANCE
WITH DEGRADED ACOUSTIC SIGNAL
 Processing is defined as neurons firing and
creating electrical activity in the brain.
 Auditory processing is a deficit in the
neural processing which is not due to
higher order language, cognition, memory
or attention.
The behavioral manifestations of
capd often appear as language
comprehension disorders
The terms auditory processing and
language processing are not
interchangeable-where auditory
processing stops and language
processing begins is still unclear
 Children with autism demonstrate
abnormalities in auditory processing
and receptive language
 Children with autism are frequently
under reactive and/or hypersensitive
to sound and there is often poor
auditory processing in contrast to
significantly better visual-spatial
skills.
 Heterogeneity of subjects and test
paradigms make it difficult to obtain
consistent findings.
It is thought that the brain areas that are
activated and therefore the strategies
activated are different in autistic children
vs. typical children
 There is significant activation of the
auditory cortex in the bilateral superior
temporal gyrus
BUT
the activation pattern was different……
there was less activation in the autistic
child.
 General hypothesis: disturbances in
the establishment of neural circuits in
the autistic brain
 A recent study by J. Gravel
Autistic children have difficulty
processing auditory information
automatically…..therefore they can’t
shift their attention easily
Implications……
 Socialization,
cognition and language development
such as semantic organization and
concept development
will be affected
 Can we test auditory processing in
the autistic child?
Certain variables need to be present
including:
 input from the team
 appropriate language
 within normal cognitive scores
 INTERVENTIONS:
 SOUND AND LISTENING THERAPUTIC
PROGRAMS:
 TOMATIS
 BERARD
 LISTENING WITH YOUR WHOLE
BODY
 THERAPUETIC LISTENING …….
 AUDITORY CLOSURE
 HOME/CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT
FM SYSTEMS!!!
MINIMIZING BACKGROUND
NOISE …T.V.

E.G.FISHTANKS/COMPUTERS
PREFERENTIAL SEATING
SLOW DOWN SPEED OF SPEECH
 We want to improve the signal to
noise ratio wherever possible……
…
 EAROBICS
 Auditory closure
 Attention
 Rhyming
 Sequencing
 Interhemispheric Transfer
 Computer games that include auditory
and video!!!
 Music therapy including singing
 Listening to a song/asking content
questions
 Drawing pictures from verbal directions
 Simon Says
 Brain Gym
 Pragmatics and Prosody
 Guessing emotions based on
intonation
 Charades
 Reading out loud
 Localization
 Blind Man’s Bluff
 Marco Polo
 GREAT AUDITORY PROCESSING
WORKS FOR ALL
RELATIONSHIPS!!!!!!