APD, It Takes A Village…Or A Team

Because of the tendency for many comorbid issues to exist alongside APD, a team approach is often advisable. Who needs to be part of the team differs for each student. A comprehensive differential diagnosis is key to identifying your team members.

Emma was clearly intelligent, but unable to read at age 12.

Emma had a lot going on. She had an ear infection with every tooth during early childhood. A serious red flag for communication problems to come. Testing revealed some visual processing deficits, very conceptual oriented thinking that often missed salient details, some auditory processing deficits (APD) – including poor phonemic awareness, an amazing memory that allowed Emma to squeak by in the early years on sight words, and impulsiveness. In this situation mom was referred to a developmental optometrist for the visual processing and a neuropsychologist for the impulsivity (a sign of attention deficit disorder) and obliviousness to salient details.

At Hearing Kids we have objective measures that bypass reliance on attention or language skills. Tests like impedance measures, otoacoustic emissions, and electroencephalography (commonly known as EEG) to look at auditory brainstem, middle latency response and late latency response,
do not need your child to do more than sit quietly while the equipment assesses the auditory system. For children who are diagnosed with ADHD we can do testing provided they have taken their medication for the hyperactivity.

To learn more about language processing and APD click here

To learn more about ADD and APD click here

To schedule a differential diagnose choose your assessment type here