Unfortunately, there are no medications or surgeries that will fix CAPD. The most common treatment is actually just learning to cope with the situation. The audiologist referred us to a speech-language pathologist, and Hannah spent two years in intensive therapy (many insurance plans will cover this). During this time, she learned many techniques to address the most common problems:
auditory memory, or the ability to remember long lists, directions, or instructions,
auditory discrimination, or the ability to distinguish the difference between sounds or words that are similar (goat/boat and hat/bat are two examples),
auditory attention, or the ability to focus long enough to complete a specific task, and
auditory cohesion skills, or the ability to draw inferences from conversations, understanding riddles, and working word problems.
The auditory cohesion skills have been the most difficult for Hannah to master. Even after two years of therapy and countless of hours of practice at home, she still doesn’t “get” jokes or riddles. She usually just laughs when everyone else does, then asks me later what was so funny. After I explain exactly why the fact that “Orange you glad I didn’t say banana” is so funny, she’ll think for a little while, then finally say, “Oh, I GET it!”
Most audiologists have found, and I agree, that the best way to treat CAPD is through the use of multiple coping strategies.