APD testing in the morning

[Angela in TN]

I posted awhile back about my son and some of his issues and we are going to an audiologist in the morning to have him tested. They were really helpful and even though they are on our insurance they faxed the procedure codes to me so that I could verify my insurance covered it. My husband and I both called at different times and were assured they paid for it after running the codes. Can anyone tell me what to expect as far as how long it should take? Is there anything I should make sure to bring? I'm getting a bit nervous!

[LizzyBee]

My 11 yo dd was tested in January and diagnosed with mild apd. Our audiologist is also an SLP, so she did both speech and audiology testing even though apd was our concern. It took about 1.5 hours and she gave me a stack of paperwork to complete during that time. It took me longer to do the parent's paperwork than it took my dd to take her tests! There were all kinds of questions about the observations that caused us to have dd evaluated, medical history, etc.

I don't remember the names of all the tests my dd had, but she did fine with it and most of it was easy. One thing I remember is that they measured my dd's emissions from her ears. Yes, our ears emit emissions! The emissions test is more precise than a standard hearing test. (It's not actually called an emissions test, but I forget the actual name of it.)

Two weeks after the tests, dh and I met with the audiologist to discuss the results. She spent a full hour going through all the tests and results, and she also gave us some teaching strategies. She was very supportive of homeschooling, which was a nice bonus. :001_smile:

[Claire]

There are different levels of APD testing.

My friend took her son to an audiologist who specializes in APD. It took almost two full days and required a lot of specialized equipment. My understanding of that kind of testing is that they first do a round of basic testing in each subtest area. If that comes out okay, there is no APD and that is the end of the testing. If they find something "off", then they do more in-depth testing in those areas. I think there are at least three levels of testing done that way. Length of time depends on how many subtest areas show problems and how long it takes to identify the specific subtype(s) and severity of each subtype problem. My friend's son showed a major problem with integration; can't remember now if there was anything else. This was about six years ago, so testing protocols may have changed since then.

My understanding of APD testing done by speech pathologists is that they administer screenings for APD. They don't have the equipment or training to do full-scale APD evaluations. Some of the screenings have high false negative outcomes. However, I think that medical insurance usually does not cover full-scale evaluations by audiologists so the screening type evaluations are much more common.

[Angela in TN]

We're back and it was about 2.5 hours, it was frustrating for my son and he had a few breakdowns of crying and complaining about the earphones. She scored the testing she did there and then talked to me about it after, she'll send a report in the next week or so. What the test showed was consistent with what I had observed in my son he has a prosodic deficit. She also asked if he had sensory issues (which I think he does) so we'll try to get some more information together to go see the OT for those issues.