LD Blog

Dean Geyer, who is a parent of a child who had difficulty learning to read, has launched a blog entitled “Hey, Teacher, My Child Can’t Read.” His daughter’s experience is, in part, a success story; after five years of special education in Delaware (US), he reports that she is on the honor roll and no longer eligible for special education.

In his entries, Mr. Geyer frequently refers to “auditory processing disorder.” Although I am very glad to learn that Mr. Geyer’s daughter is succeeding, I am wary of attributing much to the diagnosis of auditory processing disorder. I’ve been hearing about this disorder for most of my career, but I have as yet not found a satisfactorily rigorous or substantiated account of it.

If someone could point me to a definitive resource on this disorder, we could examine it systematically. I fear, however, that a close examination of the resource will reveal that it is simply hypothesizing some hidden process that can’t be precisely tested and is pretty readily reduced to not having learned some pretty specific skills.

Here are some of the questions one should ask:

1. How does one distinguish a child with auditory processing disorder from another child who doesn’t have the disorder?
2. How trustworthy (psychometrically sound) are any instruments used in making the diagnosis of auditory processing disorder?
3. What specific tasks would a child with auditory processing disorder fail? If the child was taught how to pass those tasks, would she still have auditory processing disorder?

By the way, I think there’s a similar case to be made for “non-verbal learning disability.”

Regardless of the outcomes of an investigation of auditory processing disorder, it’s still quite wonderful to know that Mr. Geyer’s daughter is succeeding. I encourage readers to jump over to Hey, Teacher, My Child Can’t Read and read his posts. I’m adding his site to LD Blog’s blog roll.