With learning support and childhood reflex therapy, I was coping well in academic skills. As I continued to be frustrated by social situations both at school and home, my mother got me checked for Auditory Processing weaknesses. From that assessment, I was found to be having difficulties in comprehending distorted speech or speech that is compromised by a poor acoustic environment. With this weakness, I may have difficulty in understanding a person in another room, a person who is speaking with his or her back to me, or a person who is speaking in a large auditorium (especially when I am seated at the back of the room). I may also have problems understanding someone who speaks rapidly, articulates poorly, or who has an unfamiliar accent or dialect. In addition, I also had difficulties understanding speech in the presence of competing background noise.
Concerned that my auditory difficulties might be the reason for my low self-esteem and weak social skill which would eventually affect my academic performance, my mother sought specialist help to remediate those auditory weakness identified in the assessment report.
Remediation focused on maximizing the use of child’s hearing to acquire spoken language, focusing on listening skills rather than visual ones.
During the learning session, I was guided to develop listening skills by:
- Listening to a story
- Verbal Recall of the main idea and detail of the story
- Written recall of the main idea and detail of the story
Weekly sessions focused on:
- Improving auditory processing skills using the Earobics programme
- Listening skills through the “Look, Listen, Think” programme
- Identify main idea and details in stories read to child
- Participates in listening games
I went for one-to-one session before going for small group session that helped me to improve on:
- Conversation skills
- Self Awareness including Self Image, Self Concept, Self Respect, Self Esteem
- Anger Management including physiological/psychological reactions, anger expressions, anger management strategies, and anger diary
- Strategies
- Relaxation Exercise
- Using Humour
- Assertive Training
- Personal Change
These sessions are additional support for my auditory processing weakness that allowed me to find ways to deal with my auditory weakness.