APD Statistics

I always like to read what the latest statistics on APD say. It still isn't even recognized by many professionals, yet the numbers are so high for folks who have the disorder. I saw this funny little picture on the web.

  It led me to this page that said, "A study has found that 43% of children referred for learning difficulties have Auditory Processing Disorder (APD). 25% have both APD and dyslexia." I sure wish I knew what study they were quoting. 

Check out this contrast:

In February 2012, www.rightdiagnosis.com said that "Auditory Processing Disorder is listed as a 'rare disease' by the Office of Rare Diseases (ORD) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This means that Auditory Processing Disorder, or a subtype of Auditory Processing Disorder, affects less than 200,000 people in the US population." 

Here are some other stats:

Estimates reveal that between 2% and 7% of the population have APD and that it is more likely to be present in males than females by a two to one ratio (Dobrzanski et al., 2011)

In March 2010, Health GM News said "An auditory processing disorder is a complex problem affecting approximately 5 percent of school-aged children."

Here's an article from the October/November 2004 issue of ADDitude - "While APD isn't as well known as ADHD, it is becoming increasingly common. Roughly 7 percent of children have some type of auditory processing difficulty."

 

According to Chermak and Musiek (1998), the incidence of CAPD has been
estimated to be as high as 3 to 5 percent and is more common than the incidence of hearing loss.

The best part about trying to find some of the latest statistics on APD is finding gems like this older article, called "Scrambled Sounds, from summer 2000.  It's about a man, Frank Musiek, and his passion to tell the world about APD. I was drawn to it because I loved the first line - "Central auditory processing disorder is to the ear as dyslexia is to the eye."  How simple... for those who understand dyslexia. The very end of the article says something poignant - Musiek says he wishes the media would pay attention to CAPD.
“If they [the media] would listen to the story, they would love it. But it’s hard to do that, because it’s something that you can’t explain in five minutes.”
“It’s a sleeping giant,” he adds. “Some day 60 Minutes will do a special on this—mark my words.” 

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 2 Peter 1:5 (NIV)