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Today’s episode is a conversation with Dr. Ruth Reisman, https://www.urbanhearing.com/about-us

about the connections between auditory processing disorder (APD) and
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). We discuss the process of evaluation and how a tailored treatment plan can help people who are finding listening and processing spoken language to be challenging.

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SHOW NOTES & TIME STAMPS:

• Introduction and background





• 2:19 – Becoming an audiologist. Advice for students.





• 4:57 – What is APD?





• 6:20 – Signs you may want to explore APD evaluation.





• 7:28 – The frustrations and misunderstandings surrounding under/misdiagnosed APD.





• 8:25 – Process of APD diagnosis.





• 12:00 – Every patient is unique! Overlaps between APD and ADHD.





• 18:00 – Multiple reasons why people interrupt?





• 19:42 – Developing a treatment plan for APD.





• 24:57 – The value of diagnosis/label.





• 28:13 – Overlap and similarities between APD therapy and aural rehabilitation following cochlear implantation/ hearing aid usage.





• 31:20 – Cautioning about generalized advice for patients, eg. “listen to audiobooks, listen to music while following the lyrics.





• 32:15 – Complexity of music.





• 33:30 – The diversity of patients and focusing on each individual’s story.





• 34:26 – Building a relationship with your audiologist.





• 34:39 – Ways to work with Dr. Reisman, in New York, Florida and Bermuda, virtually as well.

RELATED EPISODES:

ALL ABOUT AUDITORY PROCESSING DISORDER & SOUND SENSITIVITIES

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH AUDITORY PROCESSING DISORDERS

https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/thriving-in-the-midst-of-chaos-934874/episodes/auditory-processing-disorder-w-81682839

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-18-auditory-processing-disorder-apd-crash-course/id1524865133?i=1000519524920

TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00 ] Dr. Lilach Saperstein: Welcome to the All About Audiology podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Lilach

Saperstein and I’m very excited today to be speaking with Dr. Ruth Reisman in New York. I know that many, many of you have questions about auditory processing disorder, the process of getting diagnosis, what the treatment is, what even is auditory processing disorder in kids and adults.

So, I’m really excited for a very informative conversation. First, let me welcome Dr. Ruth.

How are you? Welcome.

[00:00:34 ] Dr. Ruth Reisman: Thank you. Thank you so much. It’s a pleasure to be here and to have the opportunity to speak with you and present on this platform. I am, as you said, from New York. I support the audiology field in multiple aspects.

In addition to my private practice where I do work with individuals that have auditory processing disorders predominantly focusing on individuals that actually have. ADHD as a comorbid disorder. And I’ll explain as I go into that, as to why that became my area of focus or a specialty.

[00:01:06 ] Dr. Lilach Saperstein: I have to tell you right away that that Venn diagram I discussed that Venn diagram on the regular, so we’re going to go into that for sure.

[00:01:14 ] Dr. Ruth Reisman: Great. Great. I’m excited to talk about it and, and, and let you know how I got into that. And then in addition to that, I do work at a cochlear implant company or hearing implant company, I should say, cuz it’s not just cochlear implants called Medel. So, we support patients with their implants as well and, and aural rehabilitation, just like auditory processing comes into play in that arena as well. And then one of my favorite things to do is to teach at the university and I teach multiple classes on, on all of these wonderful things, aural rehab, hearing aids, so I’m happy to talk about anything always related to audiology.

[00:01:50 ] Dr. Lilach Saperstein: Same. Anytime we find someone who’s going to talk to me about these things, I’m like totally into it.

sign me up. These are my topics. So, I think a lot of people are curious as to how you got into audiology in the first place. You know, if you thought at the beginning when you got into it that you would be involved in all these other things down the line.

[00:02:11 ] Dr. Ruth Reisman: Yeah, no, that’s a great question. I guess audiology kind of chose me, which I, which I always say as I go through the field, all of these areas kind of choose me.

Initially I had started actually in pharmacy, so I was doing a lot of science-based courses. I actually witnessed my mother suffer through hearing loss, so she had bilateral otosclerosis as she was having children and, and as we were growing up it got progressively worse. So, I’ve seen her go through the process of diagnosis, getting hearing aids and then getting surgery and her hearing actually going back to normal.

So, it was a really interesting, to witness her go through all of those stages and I became really very interested in the field of audiology. It started of course with, with speech therapy, like the majority of audiologists start, and I kind of got into the field that way, but I fell in love with audiology because of the diagnostic and the rehabilitative nature and how we can really see results with our patients.

[00:03:09 ] Dr. Lilach Saperstein: Yes, that first audiology course grabs a lot of people [laughs].

[00:03:14 ] Dr. Ruth Reisman: I would agree.

[00:03:16 ] Dr. Lilach Saperstein: Can you tell any advice for some of the students who listen? Cause we do have many students of communication disorders all around the world who message me on Instagram, always do that. Come say hi and ask for advice.

What should I do? Should this speech, should I do audiology? What advice would you have for students in general.

[00:03:35 ] Dr. Ruth Reisman: Yeah, I think both speech and audiology are very dynamic as fields. There’s a lot more to it than meets the eye. Right.

 I would encourage anyone who’s considering the field or who is enrolled in a speech and hearing program to go and speak to audiologists like myself and, and like you, to get a feel for what the field is about, what we’re able to do within the field, all of the options and opportunities because they’re really vast and I really think it’s such a rewarding field. Like, we really have the opportunity to do so much in terms of helping patients, diagnosing their issues, offering different rehabilitation options. And it’s not just about hearing loss and hearing aids. There’s balance, there’s tinnitus, there’s, aural rehab, auditory processing. So, it’s so, so dynamic and I think communicating or connecting with individuals that are in the field will give you a real sense of what’s available within the realm of audiology.

[00:04:34 ] Dr. Lilach Saperstein: That’s great advice. Connecting with actual people. You know, you can, you can Google search for a long time and listen to podcasts and you should do that, but the end of it, you know, find your local audiologist, the local community. And see if you can hop by for a day. Just watch and see what happened. That was so valuable to me when I was an undergrad.

I did that for a while.

[00:04:57 ] Dr. Ruth Reisman: Yeah, I would agree.

[00:04:58 ] Dr. Lilach Saperstein: So, let’s dive into auditory processing disorder

[00:05:01 ] Dr. Ruth Reisman: Sure. Mm-hmm. So, yeah, auditory processing is probably one of the more complex things that we work with in audiology. A lot of people, like I said, think of, okay, a patient has hearing loss, let’s give them hearing aids. But there are actual patients that it’s not hearing loss that is causing their hearing difficulty or causing their challenges.

Sometimes it can be in conjunction with hearing loss, but the majority of individuals that actually have auditory processing challenges usually have normal hearing. So, we test them on a hearing test. Their hearing is normal. But the way that they’re reporting their subjective responses sounds like they have a really significant hearing loss.

So, it’s this disconnect between what our hearing test is showing and what they’re actually repo