Receptive language disorder

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Before my daughter was diagnosed with Autism (around age 3) the speech pathologist diagnosed her with severe Receptive and Expressive language disorder. She is now 5 and her expressive language has gotten much better but she still has a lot of trouble with the receptive language. She has difficulty processing what you tell her and she also mispronounces words that she hears. Sometimes its funny although we hide our amusement....like she calls the shoe rack the shoe crack and hick-ups are pick- ups. At her age its cute sometimes.
I saw a girl at the center we go to who had a sort of hearing aid. Her mother was explaining to another little girl that she didnt have trouble hearing but that she had trouble understanding what she heard and by turning up the volume it helped her. Has anyone else heard of this thing?

It helps me when I listen to the radio or TV. Closed-caption is my friend sometimes, though I tend to become dependent on it if used too frequently. (Don't know how that "addiction" affected me in real life, though.)

I can have a hard time hearing things properly in noisy environments. Have you tried suggesting to your daughter that she watches other people's lips? It is hard to figure out exactly what people say if you only watch their lips, or just listen to them talk. But the combination of both generally gives you a clearer picture of what they say.

This is of course depending upon the idea that your daughter's problems is simply filtering out and making sense of the sounds, and not difficulty understanding the words. If she is hearing the words clearly, but not able to figure out what the words mean then you have to worry about something else.

As far as hearing aids, I would be cautious. Loud noises hurt, and amplifying loud noises isn't a very good idea. Of course if your child doesn't have any problems loud sounds then she might be fine with amplifiers.

i have to be totally relaxed to understand speech. in noisy environments i can't really hold conversations because the noise is too overwhelming and when people talk it just sounds like "wopwopwop"

my stepmom seems to mispronounce everything though. she'll call barnes & noble "barnes and nobler" and she's very awkward. maybe she's also an aspie.

Wow, my daughter sounds just like yours! She is also 5 and has always had a expressive/receptive language delay, but the expressive side has improved a lot while the receptive side is still pretty bad. Her speaking style is still kind of babyish and unclear to some people, and sometimes she gets words jumbled in a sentence (I think they call that a "semantic" problem) but otherwise she can talk non-stop.
I haven't heard of using hearing aids for a receptive language problem. Did the girl with the hearing aid have autism or did she perhaps have an auditory processing disorder or something like that?

Sometimes I can't process what people say if I'm very tired or stressed. It sounds like gibberish. I can hear them clearly though. I do have trouble hearing low tones though and miss a lot that way.

I have a hard time hearing through background noise. It's not a disorder, just my age. After 40 this can start and can progress over the years. My grandmother had very good hearing but had a hearing aid for this same problem, also age related. I'm thinking the child you met was having the same difficulty as part of her disorder.

Mumofsweet and Lilolme-

My son who is almost 5 is the same way. His expressive language is always better than his receptive language. If you remember, my son also does the verbal stimming. I wonder if there is a connection? My son has always had trouble following directions, and he does better at school with lots of prompts and pictures. I don't think there is anything wrong with his hearing though because his articulation is excellent. He was saying "diagnosis" and "diarreah" before he was 2 yrs old! LOL! The thing is, even though he can pronounce big words, I don't think he always knows what he is talking about-----

I have never heard of a hearing device for this. I have been interested in therapeutic listening---It is called "The Listening Program" I haven't tried it yet. It consists of headphones and the kids listen to classical music that has been re-arranged or something. I have been trying to find out if any other parents have seen any results. I read that it can help improve listening skills and ADHD symptoms. Have either of you heard of it?
You can look it up online. I think it may be expensive though.......

there is a condition called central auditory processing disorder (CAPD) and while many autistics show more trouble than average, some have enough problems for it to be clinically significant. Unfortenately it is difficult to test for and your child must be of school-age however not all people with receptive language delay have CAPD and one can have receptive language delay without expressive language delay and vice versa.

Increasing the volume (through hearing aids) can help but it can also negatively affect your hearing later in life especially if you don't have a hearing loss. Which is why it's best to consult with a professional as hearing aids are now designed to amplify some frequencies (like voices) while not increasing background noise to the same level. Nowadays there are a lot of options to help people who have trouble processing sound which you might want to look into as your child ages and is put in more demanding situation.

Also showing her you're amused at her mistakes can encourage her to continue speaking incorrectly. Your job as a parent is to be a good model for speech articulation even when she makes funny mistakes.

(I'm a student in speech pathology)

I think the little girl....shes about 10 or so, maybe older....only uses the hearing aide in one ear and its only during school or social group. I assume she has autism as it is an autism program. I dont know that this would be a good thing for my daughter as she can be very sensitive to sound. She enjoys listening to music through head phones but I know sometimes during therapy she can get overwhelmed by too much talking so they start using prompts, pictures, gestures and pointing so she doesnt go into a meltdown. I was mainly wondering if this thing was used by anyone else and what it was used for?
Thanks for the advice Tracker but at this point she wouldnt understand if I told her to watch peoples lips or lip read. We have a hard time trying to get her to look at people when they are speaking or when she is speaking to them. I also have very bad eye contact....like her it depends on the person, with some people eye contact is easier. She is still easily distracted by other things (especially her own reflection) and is still having a hard time with directions ect. She can follow one step and, on good days when conditions are right, even two step directions. We try to use short sentences with her because if you talk too much she will miss the end of what you have said.
Mumofsweetautiegirl your daughter does sound like mine! She talks all the time or she verbal stimms. She is so adorable that everyone falls in love with her (Im a bragger ) . She was talking non stop even before she could use real words (at 3). I wonder sometimes if my 20 year old daughter also has Receptive language disorder. She was diagnosed with auditory processing disorder, around age 14, but I was reading about Receptive language Disorder and it said that they also have trouble reading which my older daughter still does. My 5 year old autie is already reading words but when we play games sounding out words (she knows all the sounds of the letters) she always seems to miss the last sound of a word. Maybe they both have both....Do kids/people with auditory processing disorder also tend to have sound sensitivities? Or is this just part of her sensory dysfunction. (shesh I hate those words "dysfunction"..... "disorder")

I think my son has some auditory processing issues, but he is not really that oversensitive to sound. We had him on the beach for 4th of July with fireworks for about 2 hours and it didn't bother him. Also, our smoke alarm went off in our house, and I was concerned that he would freak out. He said "Again again want to hear it again!" So I think he is underreactive to some sounds. However, he really does not like the sound of babies crying. It used to be worse, but is getting better. Lately, he gets nervous when we go into different public bathrooms because he doesn't like the fans that you dry your hands with. so I think it is just certain sounds or things( especially if it is a new thing) If I just walk him through these things over time, he becomes more okay with things.