Classroom and Home Schooling Strategies to Compensate for APD
Classroom and Home Schooling strategies to compensate for APD can make a world of difference in how a student learns and processes information.
Auditory processing disorder (APD) makes it challenging for students to learn in a classroom environment, due to all the competing noise and distractions. Setting up a learning environment for APD success just takes a bit of know-how and implementations that reduce distraction and enhance a student’s ability to stay focused. This is a great first step in helping a student with their APD.
Classroom learning comes with its own host of challenges, but if your student has auditory processing issues, these challenges increase ten-fold. If you add further distortions with online learning platforms delivered through a screen, these challenges become exponential.
With APD, students have a harder time focusing and paying attention due to the sheer overwhelm and exhaustion that comes with trying to manage the distorted sensory input and parse out useful information from their environment. Therefore, setting up a learning environment to support these individuals can make a world of difference in how they learn and progress.
This article will discuss what auditory processing disorder is, how it shows up, and how teachers can optimize the learning environment to support students with APD.
What Is Auditory Processing Disorder?
Auditory processing disorder (APD) is a type of hypersensitivity that affects hearing. Someone with APD doesn't necessarily have hearing loss, but rather it's a disruption in the way their brain processes sound. With APD, individuals have a hard time understanding or using auditory information from their environment. The information from the sounds they hear gets jumbled in the brain's auditory cortex, and they can't correctly process the sounds and words being communicated to them.
This can impact several auditory skills, such as:
● Auditory Discrimination (the ability to notice, compare, and distinguish the distinct and separate sounds in words—a skill that is vital for reading)
● Auditory Figure-Ground Discrimination (the ability to pick out important sounds from a noisy background)
● Auditory Memory (short-term and long-term abilities to recall information presented orally)
● Auditory Sequencing (the ability to understand and recall the order of sounds and words)
These skills are crucial for the development of the central nervous system and accessing higher learning. As you can imagine, this makes learning new skills like reading and writing a challenge for our friends with APD.
Things can get even more difficult in the classroom, as there are often many competing sounds, accompanied by a pressure to succeed. To help those with APD progress, teachers or guides can use a handful of strategies in the classroom, which we'll cover in the next section.
Classroom and Home Schooling Strategies to Compensate for APD
The learning environment can be a challenge for children with APD, as these individuals will react to changes in the environment differently than their classmates. As a teacher, it can make a world of difference if you have a toolbelt of techniques and strategies to help compensate for your students' APD.
APD will show up differently for each person, so getting to know your student with APD and understanding their unique challenges is crucial for knowing which strategies will work for them. The benefit of implementing the below strategies is that, in many cases, it will help all of your students, not just the ones with APD.
If your school has a speech-language pathologist (SLP) or an audiologist, they may have more targeted ideas as well, so always use the resources you have on hand. Homeschooled friends -remember that you are a taxpayer, so you actually have access to the supportive services offered in the public school system, like Slp, OT, standardized testing and more. You can get lucky and find gems of therapists in the public school systems, but some families need to look in the private setting for these for more specialized intervention.
Below are some impactful and easy to implement strategies to get you started.
Optimize the learning environment by comforting with our senses:
Classical music like Mozart
Essential oils - rosemary, vetiver, nutmeg
Visual Schedules for predictability
Timers for predictability
Soothing parental/caregiver voice tones
Relaxed and dynamic facial expressions
Get and Keep Your Students Attention
It's easy for students with APD to lose focus and become overwhelmed. Therefore, keeping their attention will help them stay focused and present. Try some of these strategies for maintaining attention:
● Minimize visual distractions on the screens like advertisements and notifications
● Minimize visual distractions on the walls and desks of physical environments
● Establish eye contact and speak to them at eye level
● Use a verbal cue to bring attention back when you see their attention wandering. Phrases like “you will want to write this in your planner” or "listen," "you will want to pay attention to this," and "get ready" will signal to the student that important information is coming.
● Assist students in taking notes, as it can be challenging for students with APD to listen and write notes simultaneously. This can look like assigning a peer to share notes with them, allowing them to record the class, or giving them a copy of the teacher's notes.
● Headphones and ear buds can be helpful in focusing the instructors voice directly into the ear of the student. So adding it to online learning instead of having the speakers play over open air, can limit competing sounds.
● Give APD students more time to transition between activities. Give them a few steps to follow before beginning a new activity, and then summarize what the student should have learned before moving on.
Flexible Time and Movement Breaks
Children with APD can easily become overwhelmed and fatigued from having to pay extra attention and working hard to process information. Therefore, giving them a little more flexibility can go a long way.
● Give short breaks between activities to help students avoid fatigue.
● Allow extended time for APD students to complete tasks.
● Give students adequate time to respond to questions that include comprehension, generalizing information, or explaining a process.
Seating Arrangements
Where a student sits in a room can make a significant difference in how they are able to process incoming information. If there are a lot of distractions around, or they can't hear or see the instructor, it will be a lot more challenging.
● Sit APD students as close as three feet from the instructor, sound source, or activity, but not farther than eight feet away. This will maximize their ability to take in auditory and visual information without distraction.
● Sit APD students away from distracting noises like doors, bathrooms, windows, fish tanks, and so on.
● When studying or doing quiet work, provide a seat away from distractions to maximize focus. You can also allow students to use earplugs when doing quite work.
● Keep a daily schedule to help keep students organized and focused. Giving students a framework of what to expect can mitigate overwhelm.
Focused Instruction
For students with APD, the manner in which you communicate is just as important as the content you are communicating. These strategies will help ensure that the student will be able to process the information you're sharing.
● Speak at a rate and volume level loud enough for students to follow. Vary loudness to increase students' attention using intonation and stress. Repeat important words and use gestures to enhance instruction and comprehension.
● If you notice a student is distracted, use visual cues or say their name to bring their attention back. You can also repeat their name periodically to keep their attention.
● When giving instruction, break it down into steps, with pictures when needed.
● Ask them to repeat instructions back to you.
● Reduce verbal instruction by providing examples by modeling or demonstrating and leave the example on display.
● Encourage students to ask questions and check students' comprehension by asking them questions periodically.
● Provide positive feedback to the students to boost their self-confidence.
Organization In The Classroom
Keeping the classroom and assignments organized can help students with APD stay focused and mitigate overwhelm.
● Make sure students understand organizational expectations in the classroom (e.g., where to place homework assignments, folders, and classroom tools). Label these places with cue cards if necessary.
● Encourage using an agenda or other organizer for recording assignments, test dates, important school events, field trips, etc. Posting the assignments on a physical board outside of a computer so a student can always reference it and is not dependent upon a computer to find the assignment.
Beyond The Classroom: Treating APD At The Root
Using the above classroom techniques can make a big difference in helping children with APD focus and process information. However, if you're not addressing the root issue of APD, it's unlikely that you will see much progression in the processing challenges.
That's where Brain Harmony comes in.
At its root, APD is an imbalance in the central nervous system. That's why therapies that aim to treat APD directly rarely do much good -- it's more of a band-aid approach than it is treating the root cause.
At Brain Harmony, we understand the complex nature of hypersensitivities like APD and therefore target neurological organization to help bring our friends back into balance.
The Brain Harmony protocol takes you through a five-phase program that assists your brain and nervous system in re-organizing itself. Without addressing your sensory and perceptual systems, you can't get to the root of the problem. With Brain Harmony, we begin by setting the stage with safety. This is fundamental to any healing; if you don't feel safe and relaxed, your mind and body won't have the energy required to heal.
We have fascinating protocols that use the power of listening programs and the filtered frequencies to access the vagus nerve and its regulating abilities. One particular program, called the Safe and Sound Protocol, uses human voices (singing) that not only calms the nervous system but can train the muscle of the inner ear to process human speech better. You can accelerate auditory maturity in as little as 5 days.
Next, we move into neurological organization. In this phase, we use one, or a combination, of tools to improve brain function. This allows for more emotional control, increased cognitive function, an improved ability to connect and communicate with others, and a greater sense of self-confidence.
This is the phase where the real magic happens because the listening tools we use (such as the iLs Focus Unit) provide multisensory input (sound and bone conduction) to directly retrain parts of the brain involved in learning and communication while continuing to stay grounded. Decoding, phonemic awareness, listening in noisy places and speaking clearly requires efficient processing and storage of information. The iLs Focus system is legendary for the Reading and Auditory Processing folder and the measurable gains in improving auditory processing skills for students of any age. It focuses on the mid-range frequencies of the English language to train one's ability to discriminate similar sounding phonemes, to process and differentiate rapid occurring speech sounds, and to improve inflection and rhythm in speaking and reading aloud.
These listening programs can reduce auditory hypersensitivities, which is common in those with APD, while also training the ear to pick up on human speech. In this way, the program acts as a crucial tool for enhancing phonetic decoding, allowing individuals to understand the words that they're hearing regardless of the environments.
Brain Harmony Success Story: Case Study Rosemary
Pre-post assessments:
Rosemary completed assessments throughout her school year, including the Florida VPK Assessment and Discovery Education Assessment. The Florida VPK Assessment is an assessment given three times throughout the year to assess kindergarten readiness skills in the areas of ‘Print Knowledge’, ‘Phonological Awareness’, ‘Mathematics’, and ‘Oral Language/Vocabulary’.
For the Print Knowledge measure, Rosemary started the school year below expectations. Over the course of Brain Hamrony program, she continued to expand her knowledge and ability to recognize the difference between letters and words, the sounds letters make, and upper and lower case letter names. By the end of the school year, Rosemary scored the highest possible score of 12, which placed Rosemary in the ‘exceeding expectations’ category.
For the measure of Phonological Awareness, Rosemary started the year below expectations. She continued to expand her knowledge and her ability to manipulate different sounds in a word. The maximum score for this measure is 15, her score of 8 places Rosemary in the ‘meeting expectations’ category.
For the measure in Mathematics, Rosemary started the year below expectations. She continued expand her knowledge in the areas of counting skills, numerical relations skills, and arithmetic reasoning skills. The maximum score for this measure is 18. Her score of 15 places Rosemary in the ‘exceeding expectations’ category.
For the measure of Oral Language/Vocabulary, Rosemary started the year below expectations. She continued to expand her knowledge in the ability to express herself in words, understand language that is heard and her knowledge of age appropriate words and their meanings. The maximum score for this measure is 22. Her score of 17 places Rosemary in the ‘meeting expectations’ category.
The Discovery Education Assessment tracks a student’s progress in Reading and Math at the beginning of the year to the end of the year in comparison to peers at her school and peers throughout the entire school district.
In reading, Rosemary started the year above the district’s average and just below the school’s average. At the end of the year, Rosemary’s scores were above the district and school’s average. The target achievement level for this assessment ranged from 1258-1335, which placed Rosemary below target achievement at the start of the year. By the end of the year, Rosemary scored in the upper end of the targeted achievement range.
This measure in Math, Rosemary started the year at the same level as the district and below the school’s average. At the end of the year, Rosemary’s scores were exceedingly above the district and school’s average. The target achievement level for this assessment ranged from 1211-1322, which means Rosemary is above the target achievement level.
Auditory processing plays a crucial role in learning and is, in fact, connected to many learning disorders. If you have a student struggling to understand the information presented, they may have an auditory processing disorder.
Setting up the learning environment to support learners with APD is an excellent first step, but it's essential to get to the root of the problem for true and lasting change. Call Brain Harmony today for a Free Consultation to learn more about how we work with APD and if our program is a good fit for you.