Why doesn’t a child always understand what they are being told?
Good hearing is necessary for speech perception. But it is not just about the ears. The information received by the brain must be correctly processed. Most children that suffer from speech disorders and learning difficulties have this process disrupted.
Children that have these issues find it difficult to discern similar sounds from a rapid flow of speech. They try to guess which word was just uttered and lean on visual cues. For this reason, such a child appears to be inattentive. They find it difficult to work in a group or in class, when there are many conflicting auditory stimuli. Problems with the central nervous system’s processing of auditory information impair child’s all other forms of cognitive activities. They can be the reason for disorders in speech development and reading.
Does my child have this problem?
To get an accurate answer to this question you would have to undertake a speech neurology diagnosis.
What to do?
The auditory system can be trained. Specialised methods were created, which increase the effectiveness of ordinary pedagogical influence by approximately 35%.
Tomatis