Auditory Memory and Receptive language

One of the foundations for receptive language, or how much language your elementary school aged child understands, is auditory memory. Auditory memory is how much your child remembers, from what is heard.

Auditory memory has the following components :

1. Whether your child is able to retain what is heard

2. Whether she is then able to store it

3. And then manipulate the information to answer a question

Ways to work on auditory memory, based on the above three components, are -

1. Saying information, and then seeing if your child can repeat back what is said

2. Seeing if your child will remember something 5-10 seconds after it said

3. And then asking questions about what is heard.

Typically, to assess and to drill auditory memory, the above three skills are targeted with anywhere from 4-7 numbers or words.

Auditory memory is a pretty complex topic, and it requires a good therapist to work on this area in a targeted and effective fashion. However, there are some games you can play at home that help -

1. Word memory - you say a word. your child says that word, and a new word. Then you say the first word, the second word, and the third word... so on and so forth, making a chain of words. Your child wins if he gets to 7 words.

2. Baking! See if your child can remember ingredients. Start with the first ingredient. Then after the second ingredient is added, see if they can remember the first and the second ingredient... and so on until the recipe is finished

3. Worksheets and workbooks - there are plenty of exercises out there to drill auditory memory. In fact, Smarter Speech has some worksheets - like what does not belong, or on word association, or with direct and indirect objects - on its TPT store.

If your child is struggling with remembering information, it's a good idea to see an SLP. Or, if an SLP is already being seen, mention auditory memory, and see if that is contributing to some of the issues you are working on. It's definitely a skill that, when boosted, has many language benefits.

Happy talking - and remembering too!

Disclaimer : Smarter Speech is a pediatric speech therapy / speech-language pathology practice for toddlers and children providing in-home and teletherapy services in and around Mountain View, CA and Los Gatos, CA. Smarter Speech Blog aims to provide free speech and language tips for parents educators and therapists. However, this post is not providing speech-language pathology services. This is general information, not speech -language pathology or speech therapy. This article does not assume or create a client – SLP relationship. The author is not liable for any losses or damages due to actions or failure to act based on the content in this article. If you need assistance with a child’s speech or language needs, please contact a speech-language pathologist in your area.