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Welcome to the next article in our “Learning Through the Senses” series, where we will be exploring how each of the senses plays a role in children’s development and learning.
As children grow, their sensory experiences influence how they perceive, interact with, and learn from their environment. The way we perceive things can be categorized based on the type of sensory input that the brain is receiving:
EXTERNAL SENSORY INPUT: Sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell
INTERNAL SENSORY INPUT: Proprioception, vestibular, kinesis (movement)
In this article, we will be focusing on auditory learning: Learning through hearing. Auditory perception is crucial for language development, communication, and understanding the world around them. It’s important for parents, teachers, and caregivers to understand how auditory perception develops and how we can support this development to enhance children’s learning journeys.
Auditory perception refers to how the brain interprets messages received through the ears. When a child has poor auditory perception, they may react slowly to instructions – not because they cannot hear, but because they cannot give meaning to what they hear.
Auditory perception can be categorized into several parts, each playing a role in a child’s ability to process and understand spoken language:
1. Auditory Discrimination
Auditory discrimination is the ability to hear differences and similarities in sounds, such as loud versus soft, high versus low, or fast versus slow . This skill is important in helping children differentiate between sounds in words, helping improve both language development and reading comprehension.
Some activities that can improve auditory discrimination include:
2. Auditory Foreground & Background Discrimination
This is the ability to focus on relevant auditory input, such as a teacher’s voice, while filtering out background noise. This skill is especially important in noisy environments like classrooms. Children with poor foreground and background discrimination often struggle with focus and attention.
Activities to improve foreground and background discrimination:
3. Auditory Closure
Auditory closure is the ability to “fill in the gaps” of words or sentences, even if not all sounds are heard clearly. This helps children understand conversations despite background noise or incomplete input.
Ways to improve auditory closure:
4. Auditory Memory
Auditory memory refers to the ability to remember information that has been heard. This is critical for learning language, following directions, and memorizing sequences.
Activities to help develop auditory memory:
5. Auditory Sequencing
Auditory sequencing is the ability to remember sounds or words in the order in which they are heard. This skill is important for understanding instructions, reading, and speech.
Some ways to improve auditory sequencing:
6. Auditory Analysis & Synthesis
Auditory analysis refers to the ability to break down words into individual sounds, while auditory synthesis is the process of reassemble these sounds to form words. These skills are important for reading and language development.
Activities for auditory analysis and synthesis include:
Auditory perception is an important skill for children’s language development and overall learning. By supporting and encouraging the learning through hearing, we can create learning environments that encourage stronger language comprehension, academic success, and social interaction for our children.
