APD is treatable. Scientists have proven that neural pathways and synapses in the brain change as a result of behavior, sensory input, and training. This neural reorganization is referred to as neuroplasticity. Auditory therapy takes advantage of the fact that neural responses to sound can be changed intentionally through intensive listening exercises. Some types of APD can be completely remediated.
We offer APD therapy for both children and adults. At Auditory Processing Center, individuals struggling with listening comprehension, reading, and learning receive highly individualized treatment to overcome their learning challenges and reach their full potential to compete in a classroom setting. Auditory processing is too complicated for one approach to work for all individuals. Auditory Processing Center offers a wide variety of treatment programs and personalized activities to address each individual’s specific auditory deficits. The type, frequency, and intensity of therapy will vary with each child or adult based on the specific type(s) of auditory processing issues identified. We offer in-clinic therapy, online therapy, guided home-based treatment, and one-on-one teletherapy for auditory processing disorder. Our reports contain very detailed recommendations for auditory processing goals to work on at home, apps/software programs, teaching strategies, enrichment activities, language processing activities, and goals for speech-language therapists your child is seeing to facilitate listening skill development.
Auditory Processing Center offers:
- Deficit specific auditory training sessions to improve auditory processing. Treatment goals are individualized and may include sessions with our speech-language pathologist or audiologist to improve auditory discrimination, phonemic awareness (sound segments that comprise words), auditory memory, auditory sequencing and organization, auditory closure (recognizing a message when some of the information is distorted or missing), auditory vigilance, inter-hemispheric transfer training, localization / spatial hearing training, temporal patterning training, prosody training, auditory comprehension, auditory cohesion / higher-level language processing, and multi-sensory phoneme training using right brain teaching strategies and Auditory Processing Center’s phoneme training curriculum.
- Computer-assisted therapy programs and apps targeting individual weaknesses. Numerous apps can be beneficial to target each individual’s auditory processing deficits. Apps or online programs are often used for at-home practice.
- Therapy to improve dichotic listening skills. The ears must work well together as a team, and it is quite common for individuals with auditory processing disorder to have deficits in this area. With dichotic listening tasks, the listener hears two different signals presented simultaneously, one to each ear, and is asked to attend to one (separation) or both (integration) signals. This requires that the two cerebral hemispheres work together. Auditory Processing Center offers Dichotic Listening Therapy to treat auditory integration deficits (where the relationship between different pieces of information cannot be recognized) and improve the accuracy and efficiency with which auditory information is transmitted to different regions of the brain. Auditory Processing Center is also one of only a handful of sites in the nation offering ARIA (Auditory Rehabilitation for Interaural Asymmetry), a program developed by Deborah W. Moncrief, Ph.D., CCC-A. This program incorporates dichotic listening therapy to treat amblyaudia, a condition where a child develops a dominant ear that suppresses sound information coming from the other side, creating a “lazy ear.”
- Customized web-based programs monitored on-site while exercises are implemented at home. This includes well known evidence-based programs to enhance and “rewire” neurological pathways such as Fast ForWord.
- Speech-in-noise/auditory figure-ground therapy and/or background noise desensitization. Difficulty hearing in background noise is a very common complaint in individuals with APD. However, the problem can arise from deficits in different mechanisms, and treatment must be individualized in order to be effective.
- Virtual auditory processing services. Teletherapy allows us to provide APD therapy for individuals without access to a specialist in their area.
- Guided home therapy programs through our patient portal Parents are provided with online access to recordings of listening activities and material through our patient portal. Programs are customized and assigned based on each listener’s auditory processing deficits. Deficit-specific lessons for auditory processing disorder guide a listener through gradually more challenging tasks. Program options include online binaural separation in noise training, words in noise training, and binaural integration training. We also offer a guided home therapy program with weekly lesson plans and materials to address additional deficit areas. This is designed to be completed at home three days a week for 20-30 minutes. Activities are customized to target auditory processing weaknesses using a combination of apps, worksheets, and audio recordings with score sheets.
- Auditory-Verbal/ auditory training therapy for children with hearing aids or cochlear implants Hearing aids and cochlear implants neither return the auditory system to normal nor provide a perfect signal. Auditory therapy is necessary to facilitate the brain’s ability to learn to use the incoming sensory input. In addition to sensorineural hearing loss, these individuals can also have coexisting auditory processing disorders. For children, Auditory Processing Center offers intensive listening and spoken language therapy. Auditory skills are developed using a hierarchy of listening activities, as well as many computer assisted and web-based auditory processing intervention programs to help these individuals reach their full potential to understand spoken language and speak for themselves.
- Auditory training and auditory processing therapy for adults. We off treatment for adults with APD and also provide therapy for adults using hearing technology (such as hearing aids or cochlear implants) to maximize the benefit these individuals receive from these devices.
- Assistive Listening Devices including Remote Microphone Systems / FM Systems to improve the listener’s ability to understand speech and hear in background noise. We offer free in-office demonstrations so that you can see the benefits firsthand. We also have remote microphone systems that can be checked out for a one-week trial.
- Hearing aid services Auditory Processing Center offers hearing aids and hearing aid repair.
