Diagnosing CAPD — The American Speech - Language - Hearing Association (ASHA) states, CAPD needs to be assessed and diagnosed by an Audiologist (ASHA Technical Report “Central Auditory Processing Disorder” January 2005).

CAPD is diagnosed through specialized tests designed to assess the auditory centers throughout the central nervous system. The tests fall into two major categories: hearing acuity tests and auditory processing tests.

Hearing Acuity Tests:

• Diagnostic Audiological tests
• Otoacoustic Emissions test
• Acoustic Reflex tests
• Uncomfortable Loudness Levels tests

Auditory Processing Tests:

• Monaural low-redundancy speech tests
• Dichotic speech tests
• Temporal patterning tests
• Binaural interaction tests
• Speech understanding in noise tests
• Filtered words tests
• Competing words tests
• Competing sentences tests
• Time compressed sentences test

Note – Children being assessed for CAPD will not necessarily be given a test from each of these categories. We will select the appropriate tests for each child. The selection of tests will depend upon a number of factors, including the age of the child, the signs or symptoms the child exhibits, the child’s native language, cognitive status, and other determining factors.