Using a telephone can be problematic for someone with auditory processing disorder, in comparison with someone with normal auditory processing, due to low quality audio, poor signal, intermittent sounds and the chopping of words. Many who have auditory processing disorder subconsciously develop visual coping strategies, such as lip reading, reading body language, and eye contact, to compensate for their auditory deficit, and these coping strategies are not available when using a telephone.As noted above, the status of APD as a distinct disorder has been queried, especially by speech-language pathologists and psychologists, who note the overlap between clinical profiles of children diagnosed with APD and those with other forms of specific learning disability. Many audiologists, however, would dispute that APD is just an alternative label for dyslexia, SLI, or ADHD, noting that although it often co-occurs with these conditions, it can be found in isolation. Subcategories
Based on sensitized measures of auditory dysfunction and on psychological assessment, patients can be subdivided into seven subcategories:
middle ear dysfunction
mild cochlear pathology
central/medial olivocochlear efferent system (MOCS) auditory dysfunction
purely psychological problems
multiple auditory pathologies
combined auditory dysfunction and psychological problems
unknownDifferent subgroups may represent different pathogenic and aetiological factors. Thus, subcategorization provides further understanding of the basis of auditory processing disorder, and hence may guide the rehabilitative management of these patients. This was suggested  by Professor Dafydd Stephens and F Zhao at the Welsh Hearing Institute, Cardiff University. Treatment
Treatment of APD typically focuses on three primary areas: changing learning environment, developing higher-order skills to compensate for the disorder, and remediation of the auditory deficit itself.
This was followed by a conference organized by the American Academy of Audiology.Experts attempting to define diagnostic criteria have to grapple with the problem that a child may do poorly on an auditory test for reasons other than poor auditory perception: for instance, failure could be due to inattention, difficulty in coping with task demands, or limited language ability. In an attempt to rule out at least some of these factors, the American Academy of Audiology conference explicitly advocated that for APD to be diagnosed, the child must have a modality-specific problem, i.e. affecting auditory but not visual processing. However, a committee of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association subsequently rejected modality-specificity as a defining characteristic of auditory processing disorders. Definitions
in 2005 The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) published "Central Auditory Processing Disorders" as an update to the 1996 "Central Auditory Processing: Current Status of Research and Implications for Clinical Practice". The American Academy of Audiology has released more current practice guidelines related to the disorder. ASHA formally defines APA as "a difficulty in the efficiency and effectiveness by which the central nervous system (CNS) utilizes auditory information. "In 2018, the British Society of Audiology published a position statement and practice guidance on auditory processing disorder (APD) updated its definition of APD. According to the Society, APD refers to the inability to process speech and on-speech sounds.Auditory processing disorder can be developmental or acquired. It may result from ear infections, head injuries or neurodevelopmental delays that affect processing of auditory information.