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Auditory Processing Disorder and Low Self-Esteem
All children are prone to a lack of confidence from time to time, but those with low self-esteem are often unhappy or unsatisfied with themselves. Undiagnosed learning difficulties, especially auditory processing delays, are a common source of low self-esteem.
Low self-esteem is a concern in an increasing portion of our young population as the strains and stresses of school life intensify. While there is no quick fix, there are concrete steps a parent can take to help their child get to a better place.
Symptoms of Low Self-Esteem
The hallmark symptoms of low self-esteem are fear and anxiety–fear that they will make embarrassing mistakes and anxiety about not measuring up.
Many children with low self-esteem are hyper-sensitive–they assume others see the lack of adequacy they feel, and so are on the lookout for signs of this and so will often overreact.
Children with low self-esteem are also prone to bouts of depression and panic attacks, where their fears temporarily become overwhelming.
Consequences of Low Self-Esteem
Children with low self-esteem tend to develop compensatory behaviors that can create a negative cycle, tending to prolong or intensify the self-esteem issue:
- Poor social skills. A lack of self-esteem can manifest as shyness or a sense of aloofness. Children will avoid social interaction when a wrong word is perceived as a disaster.
- There is a lack of risk-taking in learning. Low expectations of good outcomes and the fear of making a fool of oneself often lead to an unwillingness to take a chance. Every new skill in school is considered a new way to fail.
- Extremes of over- or under-achievement. At one end, a fear of failure or rejection can lead to a lack of effort. Alternatively, some children with low self-esteem will go all out, proving to themselves that they are worthy.
A child with low self-esteem may not believe that they deserve to be treated well. This can lead to poor choices in peer relationships. In addition, they may not stand up for themselves or ask for help if they are being bullied. Children with low self-esteem may develop depression, anger, or anxiety due to repeated failures. They may engage in negative behaviors or give in to peer pressure. PsychCentral reports that children with learning difficulties often internalize the negative experiences associated with their learning difficulties.
Causes of Low Self-Esteem
Several factors can cause low self-esteem that are beyond your or your child’s control. These include medical issues or ongoing life stress from financial difficulties or relationship breakdowns.
And then there are the poor reactions to their behavior in the world around them. Many children, particularly girls, with learning issues feel they are flawed, dumb, or broken. It is also not uncommon for defensive behaviors stemming from low self-esteem to be misinterpreted by others as laziness or a lack of care. These children receive numerous negative or corrective comments from parents, teachers, and others. When a child is talked down to or put down on a regular basis, it can lead to low self-esteem, according to PsychCentral.
Another common source of low self-esteem is a diagnosed learning difficulty, such as APD, dyslexia, or ADHD. The positive news here is that you’ve discovered the source of difficulty, which you can address. If you can resolve the underlying issue or reduce the symptoms, there is every possibility that low self-esteem can be helped.
Low Self-Esteem and Undiagnosed APD
Undiagnosed learning difficulties are most troublesome for parents and children with low self-esteem. These occur when a smart, bright, inquisitive, energetic child enters the school system and gradually loses traction. The child feels the weight of expectations from parents, teachers, and peers, but finds it hard to deliver.
Because they perceive their child as smart and capable, parents can see the behaviors associated with low self-esteem as unwarranted and seek to correct them, often adding to the problem. From the child’s perspective, knowing her parents’ expectations, she feels an extra layer of anxiety, knowing deep down that she won’t be able to deliver.
Far and away, the most under-recognized and undiagnosed learning difficulty is auditory processing disorder (APD). The delay is often mild, but it is nevertheless an auditory processing delay. The reason APD is so widely undiagnosed is that it requires an exacting skill (language requires processing at 40 sounds per second). Language is at the center of all learning — reading, listening in class, and comprehension of all kinds.
APD, the inability to make sense of what is being heard, weakens phonemic awareness, making reading a chore and exhausting listening in class—particularly a noisy class. Sometimes, this is diagnosed as inattentive ADD (ADHD-PI), but most of the time, it is not diagnosed at all.
One of the most common symptoms of APD is poor, somewhat unexplained, performance in school due to the listening and reading inefficiencies it causes.
While everything appears normal on the outside, the extra concentration required to hear the sounds inside words for reading — and to make sense of the teacher’s increasingly complex lessons — eventually takes its toll. As the grades roll by, the learning inefficiencies caused by APD get harder and harder to counteract. Feelings of doubt emerge, and a cycle of low self-esteem begins to take hold.
Helping Your APD Child Build Self-Esteem
If the above scenario resonates–smart child, falling short a little at school, suffering bouts of low self-esteem–there are two steps you can take to help them develop confidence and self-assurance:
- Validate their feelings
- Work on the underlying learning difficulty
#1. Don’t Educate, Validate
Children with APD often receive negative feedback from teachers, parents, and peers. Because they struggle to hear things in class, they are often called out for not paying attention. Over time, children with APD internalize these messages. They tend to believe them if they have grown accustomed to hearing these things.
This is the crux of the problem: the child feels inadequate, but the parents see this as an attitude issue they can correct with good old positive reinforcement. In the process, parents often disregard the child’s feelings.
As Dr. Dan Siegel best describes in the book Parenting From The Inside Out, it is important to let your child own these feelings. To make a true connection with your child, listen to what he has to say, respect his experience, and avoid “educating” or, even worse, telling him directly or indirectly that what he thinks and feels is not valid.
Developing a true connection can help your child see things more accurately. Again, not by telling him how it is, but by listening and providing validation that gives him the confidence to keep working through his fears and anxieties.
Needless to say, it is also important to show understanding. Low self-esteem is not voluntary — it’s the outgrowth of a combination of external and internal factors in your child’s make-up. Negative feedback, such as criticizing your child’s behavior or yelling at them, often won’t change their behavior.
Similarly, falsely positive, feel-good platitudes are not helpful. If you will praise, consider the old “1 Minute Manager” technique: Catch your child doing something good each day, praise her for the positive choice or action, and explain why it is positive.
#2. Tackle the APD Or Learning Difficulty
For most children, school is the most crucial thing in their lives. It occupies most of their day and is a huge focus of their parents’ attention. As we have discussed, many self-esteem issues stem from poor academic performance, and this is often due to diagnosed or undiagnosed learning issues, with APD being the most common.
If we can resolve the underlying learning issues, we can improve self-esteem.
Several programs address learning issues by tackling the root cause. However, for anything related to auditory processing skills, Fast ForWord is more effective than any other program – more on the Fast ForWord research evidence here.
While the program aims to remove impediments to learning to help turn around a child’s academic career, it builds progress in small, adaptive steps that children at all levels can manage. Navigating these steps successfully builds confidence.
Taking these steps can help nurture your child’s self-worth and give them the confidence to cope with learning difficulties related to auditory processing delays successfully. To see if Fast ForWord, a treatment for APD, is right for your child, call us anytime at 1-877-914-4366.
