Some children have difficulties listening despite performing well on standard tests of hearing ability. They often complain of finding it difficult to understand what is being said when it is noisy and may also have difficulties with memory, attention, language or reading. Such children are thought to be affected by what is termed an 'Auditory Processing Disorder' (APD). However, we prefer to talk of 'listening difficulties', because many of these children perform in the normal range on tests specifically designed to assess 'auditory' skills as opposed to language skills (Moore et al., 2010)

Why a questionnaire?

Many currently available clinical tools do not reliably test for the full range of listening difficulties. Questionnaires focus on a child's presenting symptoms and are therefore more ecologically valid. We are working to develop an evidence-based questionnaire to help clinicians understand more about the listening skills of children referred to them with suspected Auditory Processing Disorder. We are addressing an urgent clinical need for tools to assess children suspected of being affected by what we refer to as listening difficulties.