Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) – progress towards diagnosis and management

Abstract

Despite ’30 Years of Progress’, the sub-title of an international meeting held on APD in late 2007 (see report in BSA News, Dec 2007), most clinicians are unclear how to deal with APD, and most researchers think the ‘disorder’ is too poorly specified to be suitable for scientific study. However, there is a huge appetite among the carers and professionals dealing with children who appear to have poor listening skills for improved diagnosis and management. Recognising this need, the lack of scientific rigour and consensus of current approaches, and the co-morbidity of APD with language disorders such as dyslexia, several groups are now tackling APD from a fresh, scientifically-based perspective. This article briefly reviews progress in these efforts, focussing on children without known hearing loss or brain damage and will, we hope, instil a new sense of optimism among practitioners who have to deal with this complex problem