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Smart Processing Texture & Sound Recognition

Boost Your Child's Sound Recognition: The Amazing Power of Texture

As parents, we often take for granted how our children learn to hear and understand sounds. For most children, recognising different sounds—whether it’s a dog barking, a car sounding it’s horn, or a teacher’s voice—is a natural process. But for some children, especially those with auditory processing challenges, distinguishing between sounds can be tricky. One surprising way which can help is texture.

What is Auditory Processing?

Auditory processing is how the brain makes sense of the sounds we hear. It’s not just about having good hearing—it’s about understanding and organizing sounds in a meaningful way. Some children struggle with this, making it hard for them to differentiate similar sounds, like “pat” and “bat.” This can affect their speech, reading, writing and overall communication skills.

How Can Texture Help?

Many children with auditory processing challenges learn best when multiple senses are engaged. This is where texture comes in. Touching different textures while listening to words and sounds can provide an additional sensory input, helping the brain make stronger connections between what is heard and what is felt.

For example, if a child is learning to hear the diff erence between “cat” and “hat,” feeling something soft like a piece of fur while saying “cat” and a rough piece of fabric while saying “hat” can create a stronger memory link between the word and its meaning.

Why Does This Work?

The brain processes sensory information in an interconnected way. When a child touches something while hearing a sound, it engages multiple areas of the brain, reinforcing learning. This is why hands-on activities, like using sandpaper letters or feeling different textures while practicing speech sounds, can be so effective.

How can this be used in Fast ForWord?

When a child is clearly struggling to make progress in any of the sound exercises in Fast ForWord such as Sky Gym, I often suggest to parents to touch the back of their child’s hands with different textures when the sounds are presented to them. For example, a smooth fabric for high-pitched sounds and a rough surface for low-pitched sounds. This provides an extra level of support and can help the child to distinguish the sounds. In some cases, this can have a dramatic effect for the child enabling them to complete the exercise quickly and easily and can be life-changing helping them to process speech sounds at normal speed by reinforcing the neural connections.

Simple Ways to Try This at Home

You can easily help your child at home by incorporating textures into play and learning. Here are a few easy activities:

– Textured Flashcards: Glue different materials onto flashcards and let your child feel them while saying the words.

– Sensory Bins: Fill a bin with rice, sand, or fabric scraps, and have your child explore textures while practicing sounds.

– Playdough Words: Have your child shape letters or words in playdough while saying them aloud.

Smart Processing Texture & Sound Recognition Try at Home

Feel Outside the Box

Every child learns differently, and sometimes, thinking outside the box—or in this case, feeling outside the box—can make all the difference.

Email Mary for more information on how Smart Processing can help.

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