What is it?

When we listen, the ear receives a sound signal but it is the brain that processes these signals. This part of the brain is what we call the “Auditory System”. The auditory system allows us to attend to, discriminate, and understand verbal information.

How is it used?

Our Auditory System is responsible for a number of foundational skills like the ability to:

• discriminate sounds - when a child hears “dog”, he can tell it is made up of the sounds, “d”, “o” and “g”, even if he is not able to explain this.
• recognise different intonation patterns to allow us to learn the sounds and meaning of a language – which affects comprehension and ability to follow instructions;
• interpret the mood of a person from the intonation of their voice - Is mummy asking a question, making a statement or just plain angry?;
• remember sounds from the words we have heard and comprehended – which is vital for spelling, learning the time-table, and answering a Science question like what causes the sun to set everyday!

What are the symptoms arising from weak Auditory Skills?

There are several skills involved in our auditory nervous system. Confidence in communication, asking questions during a class and even making friends in a social context all require our Auditory Skills to be working strongly. And when the Auditory System is weak, one may show the following signs of auditory processing difficulty: