Signs and symptoms
Many people experience problems with learning and day-to-day tasks with difficulties over time. Adults with this disorder can experience the signs and symptoms below:
talk louder than necessary
talk softer than necessary
have trouble remembering a list or sequence
often need words or sentences repeated
have poor ability to memorize information learned by listening
interpret words too literally
need assistance hearing clearly in noisy environments
rely on accommodation and modification strategies
find or request a quiet work space away from others
request written material when attending oral presentations
ask for directions to be given one step at a time

Relation to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
It has been discovered that APD and ADHD present overlapping symptoms. Below is a ranked order of behavioral symptoms that are most frequently observed in each disorder. Professionals evaluated the overlap of symptoms between the two disorders. The order below is of symptoms that are almost always observed. This chart shows that although the symptoms listed are different, it is easy to get confused between many of them. There is a co-occurrence between ADHD and APD. A systematic review published in 2018 detailed one study that showed 10% of children with APD have confirmed or suspected ADHD. It also stated that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the two, since characteristics and symptoms between APD and ADHD tend to overlap. The systematic review mentioned here described this overlap between APD and other behavioral disorders and whether or not it was easy to distinguish those children that solely had auditory processing disorder.
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.