Auditory discrimination is not about your child’s hearing acuity.
Some children have perfect hearing, but still have difficulty telling sounds or words apart, especially in noisy or distracting environments.
What is auditory discrimination?
When a child has demonstrated that she hears a sound, that doesn’t necessarily mean that she hears it differently than other sounds. Before understanding or attaching meaning to a sound, a child must be able to hear that two sounds are different.
Auditory discrimination is the ability to recognize, compare and distinguish between distinct and separate sounds. In other words, the competence to realize the difference between similar-sounding speech sounds and words, or other sounds.
Particularly, auditory discrimination allows people to distinguish between phonemes in words. Phonemes are the smallest units of sound in any given language.
Why is auditory discrimination important for learning?
Auditory discrimination skills are very important for academic success and have been correlated with reading competence. Some specialists believe that poor auditory discrimination can be a major factor in children’s failure to reach reading targets.
A child’s auditory discrimination capability also affects how he produces speech sounds.
Activities that require auditory discrimination skills include:
- Following directions
- Reading
- Writing
- Spelling
How can you tell if your child has trouble with auditory discrimination?
A child who has trouble with auditory discrimination may have difficulty telling the difference between words like “sister” and “sitter ” so he will have problems understanding what people are saying in the classroom, homes with large families, and environments with loud music, or blaring televisions.
Some signs of auditory discrimination problems can be seen in children as young as 3 -5 years old and are reflected in their speech and responses when others speak to them. They include:
- Confusion of similar-sounding words
- For example, cap/cat, seventy/seventeen.
- Articulation errors that are consistent with or that suggest acoustic confusion?
- For example, she substitutes the d sound for the g sound.
- Difficulty following directions that other children of her age follow easily, even when she appears to be paying attention.
- For example, “Put away your toys and come down to dinner.”
- Difficulty staying focused on a person’s voice and unable to detect subtle changes in the speaker’s tone?
- Frequently requests repetition or clarification of what you say.
How can you help your child develop auditory discrimination skills?
Children learn best when they are having fun. Use games and movement activities to promote the development and improvement of your child’s discrimination skills. Here are 3 ways to do so:
- Play Sound Detective
- Have the child listen to recorded sounds, then have her tell you whether it was loud/quiet, fast/slow, high/low, etc.
- Play Same/Different game
- Have your child listen to sets of two everyday sounds and tell you whether they are the same or different; e.g. dogs barking / pig grunting, cow mooing / musical instrument playing.
- Have her listen to sets of two words and tell those that are the same and different; e.g. bat/bat, bat/bet.
- Ask your child to listen carefully to the beginning of each word and to tell you which word does not start with the same sound as the others.
- tip, sip, tear, tame
- bean, bear, bat, cat
- sign, take, took, tap
- sip, sing, child, sister
- sorry, super, silly, taken
Auditory discrimination plays an important role in both language and reading skill development. If you want your child to achieve literacy and you notice she is having difficulty with this skill, you can help her at home by using the activities I suggested in this article or similar ones. Be creative. The earlier your child’s deficit in this area is addressed, the better it is for his learning and academic development.
What other games or activities would you suggest to help develop a child’s auditory discrimination skill?
Very Interesting!! And thank you for the wonderful information and how to help solve it.
You’re welcome, Sarah. Please pass the information on to your friends with children.
Ugh, I really struggle with this stuff. It has affected every aspect of my life. There are places that I avoid because of the acoustics. I did not get any help for this until I was in my 30s. Early intervention is so important. If your kid is struggling with sound, make sure to get your kid help right away. Also be patient with your kid. They are not defiant or oppositional. They truly don’t understand what you are saying. Be gentle and don’t insist on bringing your kid to a place that is overwhelming. Hire a babysitter, if necessary.
This is great advice for parents, Alice. My heart aches for children when I see their parents embarrass them in public because of a response due to deficits in their auditory skills. Another area of concern is when parents adopt the reasoning of teachers who tell them their children are deliberately defiant because they are bright but refuse to follow directions.
Florence, your article is fascinating, as always! When I was in first grade, I had trouble distinguishing certain words when reading. Wish I could remember now what they were; but with focus, I learned to distinguish them. I now remember that I was mainly surrounded by very kind educators, and, as a smart kid, I was rarely suppressed. What blessings.
Thanks, Kebba. Teachers who are called to that profession respond differently to children who are slow in developing certain key skills for learning. They acknowledge and affirm the areas in which the child excels and find ways to help them strengthen the weak ones. You were indeed blessed. Not everyone is.
What an awesome article, you help so many. I also think the learning games are a great way to help children learn, I’m even going to use them with Lia just for fun and early learning.
Thanks, Martha. Learning games help all children. If executed correctly and consistently, they may prevent those with dyslexia from developing deficits in skills.