My Autism Insights

Do audio books help individuals with auditory processing disorders to strengthen their listening and processing skills?  It would seem that they do.  According to Christie Berry, Ed. D., in her essay “Reading with your Ears ,” “Listening to unabridged audio books while following along in the book improves language skills, auditory processing, and contributes to an increase in overall cognitive abilities.” This was heartening to find as it validated 2 things I’ve been thinking about.  First, I’m noticing that Gus has a greater ability to focus on something auditory when he’s being read a story and following along (as opposed to listening if I’m asking him or giving an instruction).  So I started wondering if audio books might start to increase the length of time that he can sustain listening. This question was brought about by a second observation I recently made,  this one about myself.

I have terrible listening skills - always have.  Unless I’m very interested in what someone is saying, I zone out pretty quickly.  You can see how that might have been a problem in school since I often didn’t pay attention to what my teachers were saying (except the especially interesting one).  Fortunately, I’m a much more visual learner and a combination of reading and writing things down allowed me to excel, at least through high school.  College was a different story.  I had one teacher, my accounting professor, who droned on so badly that I could not stay awake in his class no matter how many coffees I had beforehand.  Only class I ever flunked.  When I became a teacher years later, there was always a running joke between my co-teacher and myself because neither of us was ever able to listen in the professional development meetings. We’d always say, “we don’t do extended listening.”

Then a few years ago, something incredible and completely unexpected happened.  Harry Potter on CD.  I was already a crazy obsessed fan, so I figured I could listen to them while driving and even if I missed a bunch of stuff, I knew them almost verbatim anyway.  What a surprise to learn that Jim Dale is a wonderful narrator and that I actually did have the capacity to listen to something for a long stretch - if it was interesting.

I’ve since become very fond of audio books and listen to segments of books almost every day.  Even the books I find less engaging to read (Jane Austen) hold my interest with the help of a good reader.  I’m fairly certain I’ve increased my capacity to pay attention to auditory information.  I’m thinking of trying some audio books for Gus (not Harry Potter - my kids don’t share my enthusiasm).  Perhaps they might help him to be able to focus in the classroom a little better over time.

For additional information on how audio books can help with auditory processing disorders, check out “Improving Auditory Processing - Listening to Language” by Sharon Hensley.

Have you had any success with using audio books to develop auditory processing skills?

Tomorrow: guest post from the author of General Hysteria on art projects for special needs children.  Don’t miss it!

Imagine you are heading to a friends’ new home for a housewarming (pretend it’s the days before Map-quest and Google-maps and GPS) and all the invitation says is to be a place XYZ.  How would you get there? You turn the envelope inside out, and there are no directions! Admit it, you’d be at least a little annoyed and might end up quite frustrated.  You might even just decide to mail a gift and not bother trying to find the place.  When you ask your friends about the lack of directions, they might say, “Oh, I figured you knew how to get here.”

If you’ve followed a route to a destination many times, it’s easy to forget that it’s not such an automatic process for everyone else.  This is a good analogy for how many parents give their autistic children (or even ADHD children) instructions.

I’ve been guilty of this as well.  I’ll often tell Gus, “get dressed,” and then 20 minutes later, he’ll still be in pajamas.  Once or twice he put his clothes on over pajamas.  It finally occurred to me that giving a child with auditory processing problems a multi-step instruction is probably not the most effective way to get things done.  I won’t even get into how badly “clean your room” usually works out.

Lately, I’ve tried a different approach - breaking down a general request into smaller component parts.  Instead of “get dressed,” I now start off with, “get dressed - pajamas off first…now put on your shirt…now put on your pants…great! close your pants…socks next…” His brain needs each step in the process, just like a computer program does.  Without the steps, the process can’t even get started, let alone completed.

Now, you might wonder if constantly reminding your child about these ’steps’ will make him or her less independent.  I think that, like many things, with enough repetition, these things will become automatic.  If you want to encourage more independence, you could try visual reminders in a sort of checklist format.  For example, in each of our bathrooms, we have steps for using the toilet (i.e. flush, pull up pants, wash hands) with pictures and words so that it was accessible for both kids. I’ll still ask if they’ve done each step after they come out of the bathroom, and I’ll get an exasperated, “yes, Mom,” but at least I know the checklists helped.  At some point in the next 30 years I’ll be able to stop asking.  In the meanwhile, I can shout a little less about things not getting done.