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Deaf ear to ADHD | PerthNow
THOUSANDS of children diagnosed with attention deficit disorders may have a common hearing disorder, a Perth audiologist says.
The claim adds to growing concern that too many children are being diagnosed with ADHD when they have other health problems - or are just simply a handful for parents and teachers.
Perth audiologist Brad Hutchinson said the overlap between ADHD and a condition known as central auditory processing disorder was so striking that all children suspected of having ADHD should first be tested for it.
But he said Australian doctors and teachers were not trained to recognise CAPD, resulting in children being given ADHD drugs to curb inattentive behaviour.
He said children with CAPD struggled to make sense of verbal instructions, especially in noisy classrooms. This made them appear non-compliant and fidgety - symptoms mistaken for ADHD.
``At least 50 per cent of kids (with behavioural or learning problems) coming in to our clinic have some auditory processing problems,'' Mr Hutchinson said.
While research suggested about 5 per cent of all children suffered from CAPD, Mr Hutchinson estimated it was more likely to affect up to 10 per cent.
Once shown how to recognise CAPD, teachers were able to find two to three children in every class with the disorder, he said.
As well as affecting behaviour, the condition also led to problems such as dyslexia and learning delays because sufferers struggled to hear fine differences between words, such as ``pat'' and ``bat''.
He said CAPD was not caused by deafness, but by a child's brain being unable to decipher what it heard.
The condition was not picked up in standard hearing tests, but could be diagnosed using an extended test that required children to identify words heard with background noise, or spoken very slowly.
It was treated using a computer program that modified sounds to allow the child to understand phonics and learn other skills necessary for reading and writing.
Long time anti-ADHD drug campaigner and Bassendean MLA Martin Whitely said he supported any approach that treated the cause, not just the symptoms, of attention deficits in children.
He said the method of diagnosing ADHD, using a subjective questionnaire, led to many questionable diagnoses.
``The diagnostic criteria are so loose and subjective that any child could go close to getting a diagnosis of ADHD,'' he said.
``If a child does have problems at school or home, you need to find the real cause and not just apply this completely unscientific label and drug the kids with amphetamines.''
Mr Whitely said it made sense that a child who could not process sound properly was going to appear inattentive.
THOUSANDS of children diagnosed with attention deficit disorders may have a common hearing disorder, a Perth audiologist says.
The claim adds to growing concern that too many children are being diagnosed with ADHD when they have other health problems - or are just simply a handful for parents and teachers.
Perth audiologist Brad Hutchinson said the overlap between ADHD and a condition known as central auditory processing disorder was so striking that all children suspected of having ADHD should first be tested for it.
But he said Australian doctors and teachers were not trained to recognise CAPD, resulting in children being given ADHD drugs to curb inattentive behaviour.
He said children with CAPD struggled to make sense of verbal instructions, especially in noisy classrooms. This made them appear non-compliant and fidgety - symptoms mistaken for ADHD.
``At least 50 per cent of kids (with behavioural or learning problems) coming in to our clinic have some auditory processing problems,'' Mr Hutchinson said.
While research suggested about 5 per cent of all children suffered from CAPD, Mr Hutchinson estimated it was more likely to affect up to 10 per cent.
Once shown how to recognise CAPD, teachers were able to find two to three children in every class with the disorder, he said.
As well as affecting behaviour, the condition also led to problems such as dyslexia and learning delays because sufferers struggled to hear fine differences between words, such as ``pat'' and ``bat''.
He said CAPD was not caused by deafness, but by a child's brain being unable to decipher what it heard.
The condition was not picked up in standard hearing tests, but could be diagnosed using an extended test that required children to identify words heard with background noise, or spoken very slowly.
It was treated using a computer program that modified sounds to allow the child to understand phonics and learn other skills necessary for reading and writing.
Long time anti-ADHD drug campaigner and Bassendean MLA Martin Whitely said he supported any approach that treated the cause, not just the symptoms, of attention deficits in children.
He said the method of diagnosing ADHD, using a subjective questionnaire, led to many questionable diagnoses.
``The diagnostic criteria are so loose and subjective that any child could go close to getting a diagnosis of ADHD,'' he said.
``If a child does have problems at school or home, you need to find the real cause and not just apply this completely unscientific label and drug the kids with amphetamines.''
Mr Whitely said it made sense that a child who could not process sound properly was going to appear inattentive.