[senco-forum] APD readers (Long)

From a personal and family historical perspective, my eldest son and I were

Hi Martin

Prior to 2000 there were 4 ASHA accepted models of CAPD, as described by
Terri James Bellis "When the Brain Can't Hear: Unraveling the Mystery of
Auditory Processing Disorder" The main problem in the USA at the time was
that many Audiologists who were diagnosis CAPD were using their own models
of CAPD and then providing their own preferred remedial programs as
recommended treatment, and this had become almost a licence to print money.

So ASHA sponsored a series of Conferences to clarify the situation. The
first important Conference was the Bruton Conference of 2000 that recognised
that many who experienced Auditory Processing Symptoms has causes other than
those previously defined by the original 4 Models mentioned above. And as a
direct result of this recognition the word Central or the C or CAPD was
dropped and Auditory Processing Disorder became the new name for this
condition.

Mid way through this process The UK's Medical Research Council had been
successfully lobbied to begin their own APD research program, were lucky
enough to have access to one of the leading members of the USA review body
(who was and still is a Clinical Research Fellow at the Neuro-otology
Department National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, 
Queen Square London) as part of the UK APD Steering Committee that advises
the MRC on issues regarding APD. 
There was also a new interest in APD beginning in Australia as this would
begin to explain some of the problems being experienced by the indigenous
population who have a very low immunity to some specific forms of severe Ear
infections which appeared to be causing symptoms of APD. 

The UK was first to publish a national APD paper in 2004 The Medical
Research Councils APD Pamphlet, (there were less historical sets of
professional differences to resolve), which was followed by the ASHA "(C)APD
Technical Report" in 2005. Most of the professional divisions that currently
exist concern which profession(s) should be able to diagnose APD, especially
in the USA where by law only Audiologists can diagnose APD, but in the UK
and Australia other professions have been included in the diagnostic and
research programs, including Speech and Language, and Psychologists. The
issues in the USA revolve around the pre 2000 Diagnostic tests which are
language based, and the interpretation of the results of these tests having
to relate specifically to Auditory Processing as opposed to other related
issues.

During and from the late 1990s Dyslexia researchers have been considering
the Auditory and Visual Components, that contribute to cause the problems
which are called dyslexia, and they loosely talk about and investigate
auditory and visual processing issues, without specific reference to any
specific disorder, but they are approaching these issues from a different
research perspective. Dyslexia is can only be concerned with reading,
writing, and spelling issues, which are problems related to the visual
notation of a man made auditory communication system. 
Auditory Processing Disorder, is concerned with a series of Auditory sensory
information processing problems that affect our ability to process all
auditory input, including the auditory input of the man made communication
system. 

The present Director of the Medical Research Council's Institute of Hearing
Research, Prof David Moore, prior to taking up this post, was working at
Oxford University researching the psychology of Auditory systems, and was
instrumental in the development of the MindWeavers Phonomena research
program. And at an early informal meeting we had, he expressed the view that
APD was a major underlying cause of dyslexia. And other members of the APD
Steering committee with privately say the same thing.
There is a new research project headed by Dr. Caroline Witton (who has
worked with John Stein on many research projects) at Aston University
specifically researching the direct link between Auditory Processing and
Dyslexia. Dr. Witton has already published papers concerning Auditory
Processing and reading skills. (There are some links to some of the related
PDF files on the APDUK (UK professionals interested APD" web page at
http://www.infolinks.apduk.org/ukapdprof.htm if you wish to look further)

>From a personal and family historical perspective, my eldest son and I were
first diagnosed as being dyslexic, and the problems that were causing us to
be dyslexic were later clinically diagnosed as Auditory Processing Disorder.
In the very near future the research community will eventual catch up with
peer reviewed research to confirm this. 
The existing delay between our clinical Diagnosis of APD, the implications
that APD has on our daily lives including dyslexia, and the publication of
the peer reviewed research that supports all that we have been told during
the long diagnostic processes has been and continues to cause high levels of
personal stress.
And this needless high level of stress may be reflected in the frustration
expressed in some of my posts.

There are no brief and short answers to the questions you pose, because
there are so many variables some of which are still either unknown, or
currently the subject of present research. There will be in years to come
further research in to the underlying causes of APD, when we have developed
the technology to begin to understand those issues. Hopefully I will not be
involved in that debate, so that others try to outline the concepts to me,
and may be from their own personal experience of coping with the problems,
which is much better than trying to understand these issues from research
paper by those who can only try and best guess what it is like to live with
such issues.

Best wishes

dolfrog

-----Original Message-----
From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of
Mmilesep at aol.com
Sent: 30 April 2007 08:33
To: senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
Subject: Re: [senco-forum] APD readers

In a message dated 29/04/2007 23:02:00 GMT Daylight Time, Olanys at aol.com  
writes:

"Can  some people with APD read ok? Just a  thought."

Yes they can, phonemic awareness and phonological  difficulties don't
affect 
everyone with APD.  

So APD does not cause dyslexia then?

Martin