Central Auditory Dysfunctions

There are many cases in which the ears of an individual have no physical difficulty in picking up sounds and passing them along to all parts of the auditory pathway. These same individuals, however, do present some auditory difficulties, such as the inability to understand conversation in noisy environments and difficulty with complex directions; if these difficulties appear in childhood, these individuals could have problems developing language and communication skills.

Unfortunately, when many doctors test these individuals with traditional hearing tests and discover that hearing is “normal”, the individual is perceived as having some kind of psychological issue and is given treatment to this effect. This is unfortunate because the individual may very well have an auditory problem that is not addressed by treatments for psychological problems.

In these individuals, the problem lies not with the sound reaching the brain, but with the brain’s ability to process and interpret the sound. The brain must process sound in order for us to understand what is being said and to decide on what action to take in response to some sound. The brain analyzes a sound’s frequency, intensity and other physical characteristic to construct an “idea” of the sound and then compares it to other stored sound ideas so that we can recognize sound. Before recognition takes place, the hearing center of the brain (located in the brainstem), actually sends the sound signals to other parts of the brain for help in processing and understanding words and other sounds.

In people with central auditory dysfunctions, however, there is a problem in this processing. These individuals pick up sounds normally, move them along all the parts of the ear and to the brain, but the brain is not able to properly handle the acoustic information it receives. The cause of this problem is currently unknown. Researchers believe that aging, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s could be some factors leading to processing problems in the brain; in these and other conditions, there are problems with the release of neurotransmitters and brain signaling and this is thought to have an impact on global organization and interpretation of sound signals.

People with a dysfunction of this nature have difficulty hearing in noisy environments, difficulty following long conversations, difficulty remembering spoken information, are easily distracted by other sounds, cannot follow complex directions and tend to confuse words that sound alike; they can also display other characteristics. To assess whether an individual suffers from a central auditory dysfunction, a standard hearing test should first be given; if this comes out normal, then the person should be subjected to electrophysiological tests to analyze brain activity.

Although central auditory dysfunctions are troublesome and often untreatable, they are not common and they do not cause deafness. Nonetheless, you should try and ascertain whether someone, especially a child, suffers from a central auditory dysfunction to provide the support that is needed.