What is Auditory Temporal Processing

All of our senses, all our experiences in seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, and tasting, are all constructions of our brain. Though this may sound a bit confusing, even disturbing perhaps, it is simply a fact that is easily proven. All information, of each of our senses, is transmitted to our brain through countless synapses, i.e. neural cells transmitting information. What matters most is change. Our brain then constructs all these signals into a visual picture, or a hearing sensation, an experience of temperature, or taste, etc.. To somewhat complicate things further, our brain receives vastly more information than what we require for our experience. It actively filters everything and both qualifies and quantifies it. What is important or unimportant, dangerous or innocent, relevant or irrelevant: and to what extent. When one listens to a conversation in a group (think of a Reception or Lobby), our brains are able to extract and track the conversation pertaining to ours, and pay less attention (or no attention) to the things said around us.

Where it relates to Dyslexia, Auditory Temporal Processing has to do with the ability to discern tiny changes in sound within words. Take the word Auditory and pronounce it out loud, at a slow pronunciation speed. You will hear a bouquet of sounds. The sound frequency changes, as does the volume, and the unique characteristics shaping each sound component, and each phoneme within the word.

Children with an Auditory Temporal Processing Deficit have a reduced or more limited ability to discern those changes. The answer to this is not speaking louder, or increasing the volume, but rather to speak slower and more clearly articulated.

DYNAREAD Dyslexia Remediation offers the ability the work with slower pronunciations, and our Samuel Bomgard SDCA Auditory Test has been designed to measure which children need this or not. The test is freely available, thanks to a grant made available in honor of the late Samuel Bomgard.