Do you have APD? Do you know someone who does? Have questions or feel like sharing?

APD (sometimes known as CAPD which stands for Central Auditory Processing Disorder) is known as the "Invisible Disibility" and randomly prevents the sufferers from processing auditory (verbal) information. APD is highly misunderstood because the problem is with how the auditory nervous system processes and interprets that information, and *not* strictly with how well one hears.

APD can affect how a child acquires language skills, learns in school (particularly reading) and can impact educational and social communication abilities. Aspects of auditory processing which may be affected by APD include auditory discrimination, the ability to distinguish between similar sounds or words; auditory figure-ground, the ability to distinguish relevant speech from background noise; and auditory memory, the ability to recall what was heard.

Physiological causes: While there is no one cause, the disorder will occur in various locations along the path followed by acoustic signals as they are received, transition into neural signals and then ultimately pass through neural networks from the ear to the brain for additional analysis (before the ultimate recognition or comprehension and response). In many children, the development of important auditory centers within the brain is linked directly to maturational delays which result in this disorder. In others, variations in brain development can lead to benign differences and create the deficits. Sometimes, the disorder may relate to neurological problems caused by tumors, trauma, surgical mishaps, disease, viral infections, oxygen defficiency, lead poisoning, auditory deprivation, or anything along these lines.

See www.apduk.org for additional info.

http://apd.tribe.net