Jan. 15, 2010

Auditory Processing is “what we do with what we hear.” When someone asks us a question, we take it in, make an association with what we already know, and respond.  I was working with a social skills group of school-aged girls this week who have difficulty keeping up with conversations with their peers.  Let’s face it, girls speak quickly.

You can practice these at home.

      Hmmm.

      Give me a sec.

      I’m just thinking.

      That’s a good question… Let me think.

      What did you ask again?

      I think that… hmmm.

      I don’t know…what do you think? 

      Oh that reminds me.

      Let me make sure… you asked…?

I also had the girls practice repeating the question to get more time.

            Ex: Hmmm, What did I do over the weekend?

And, repeating one word of the question.

            Ex: Weekend, hmmm.

We also worked on identifying the topics and staying on the topics.

They think to themselves:   

      What are we talking about?

      What do I know about that?

Lastly, they practiced jumping in with their thought.

Ah, success! 

For more information on Social Skills and Auditory Processing see my articles under Ask Sue and my DVD Diamond Social Skills.