Auditory Discrimination Difficulties

The child has difficulty differentiating between similarities and differences in sounds of letters and words. This problem is aggravated when the child is unable to sort through or ignore background noises and voices. The most apparent difficulties are seen in certain consonantal sounds, such as /b/ and /p/, /m/ and /n/ or /d/ and /t/, etc. Even more difficult are short vowel sounds, especially /e/ and /i/. Words frequently misread are three-letter words in which only the vowel sound is different, for example, /pen/, /pin/. As Critchley noted, the learning disabled child is unable to detect the differences in the auditory properties of letters and words.

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