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Auditory discrimination refers to the brain's ability to organize and make sense of language sounds. Children with
auditory discrimination difficulties might have trouble understanding and developing language skills because their
brains either misinterpret language sounds, or process them too slowl y. Often, these children cannot differentiate
between similar sounds, or they are unable to recognize language in certain situations.

Language is made up of phonemes. A phoneme is the smallest possible sound in a word, and is not necessarily related
to spelling. For example, the word "night" has three phonemes: the "n" sound, the "eye" sound, and the "t" sound.
When we listen to language, our brains organize the different sounds into meaningful chu nks that we can interpret as
words. This is called phonological awareness.

People with auditory discrimination disorders may appear to be deaf or hard of hearing. They might not respond to
spoken language if there is background noise, or they might understand sounds incorrectly. Problems with auditory
discrimination are usually related to the brain rather than to the ear itself. It means the person can hear, but he or she
hears things "wrong." A doctor can diagnose an auditory discrimination disorder after tests have shown there are no
physical hearing problems.

Children with auditory discrimination disabilities often fall behind in school, particularly in reading and spelling,
because they lack the phonological awareness needed to make relationships between sounds and the symbols that
represent them. Sometimes they appear to have speech impediments or a stammer because they cannot accurately
produce the language sounds they can't hear properly. These children may also be unable to understand a teacher who
is not facing them or addressing them directly, or they will ha ve difficulty picking out language sounds if there is any
background noise.

The Wepman's Auditory Discrimination Test (WADT) is an assessment tool that is commonly used to diagnose
auditory processing disorders in young children. In this test, a child is seated so that she can't see the examiner. The
examiner reads a series of minimal pairs, or words that differ by only one phoneme such as "bit/pit" or "ship/sheep."
Some of the pairs of words have no differences, and the child is given a score based on how many pairs she correctly
identifies as the same or different. Other tests might involve asking a child to repeat words back to an examiner, or say
a word back with a sound missing.
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