Auditory skills are important for gathering sound and attaching meaning to it. Auditory Awareness is the ability to distinguish gross sounds and the finer sounds that are connected to words. Auditory Localization is the ability to tell which direction a sound is coming. This allows one to attend to a barking dog, crying child or mom's voice calling to you in a store. Auditory Figure-Ground permits one to pick out the most important sound in a noisy environment like a classroom.  Auditory Discrimination allows a person to tell the difference between sounds that are alike or different.

Auditory Memory allows students to remember a series of sounds or words that might be a set of directions to follow. Auditory Analysis permits a student to take sounds apart and is essential for accurate spelling. Auditory Closure allows a student to fill in the blanks of a whole when part is missing. Filling in the blanks of sentences may be difficult. Auditory Synthesis is the ability to put sounds together in order to form a word, e.g. d-o-g = dog. The student may experience being able to blend sounds (st, bl). Auditory Scanning is the ability to locate the most important auditory information in a noisy environment such as a classroom. Auditory Speed of Listening is the ability to take in auditory information quickly such as when a teacher is giving last minute homework assignments as everyone is getting ready to leave. A student with difficulty in these areas does not necessarily mean that s student has a hearing impairment.