Treating auditory verbal agnosia with intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) is controversial because of its inconsistency as a treatment method. Although IVIG is normally used to treat immune diseases, some individuals with auditory verbal agnosia have responded positively to the use of IVIG. Additionally, patients are more likely to relapse when treated with IVIG than other pharmacological treatments. IVIG is, thus, a controversial treatment as its efficacy in treating auditory verbal agnosia is dependent upon each individual and varies from case to case.

Currently, no forms of treatment have proven effective in treating amusia. One study has shown tone differentiation techniques to have some success, however future research on treatment of this disorder will be necessary to verify this technique as an appropriate treatment.

In incidents where tumors and their pressure effects are the cause of pure word deafness, removal of the tumor has been shown to allow for the return of most auditory verbal comprehension.

Auditory agnosia is a form of agnosia that manifests itself primarily in the inability to recognize or differentiate between sounds. It is not a defect of the ear or "hearing", but a neurological inability of the brain to process sound meaning. It is a disruption of the "what" pathway in the brain. Persons with auditory agnosia can physically hear the sounds and describe them using unrelated terms, but are unable to recognize them. They might describe the sound of some environmental sounds, such as a motor starting, as resembling a lion roaring, but would not be able to associate the sound with "car" or "engine", nor would they say that it "was" a lion creating the noise. Auditory agnosia is caused by damage to the secondary and tertiary auditory cortex of the temporal lobe of the brain.

Over the past decade, much has been discovered about amusia. However, there remains a great deal more to learn. While a method of treatment for people with amusia has not been defined, tone differentiation techniques have been used on amusic patients with some success. It was found with this research that children reacted positively to these tone differentiation techniques, while adults found the training annoying. However, further research in this direction would aid in determining if this would be a viable treatment option for people with amusia. Additional research can also serve to indicate which processing component in the brain is essential for normal music development. Also, it would be extremely beneficial to investigate musical learning in relation to amusia since this could provide valuable insights into other forms of learning disabilities such as dysphasia and dyslexia.

There are three primary distinctions of auditory agnosia that fall into two categories.

Beat deafness is a form of congenital amusia characterized by a person's inability to distinguish musical rhythm or move in time to it.

Neuroscientists have learned a lot about the role of the brain in numerous cognitive mechanisms by understanding corresponding disorders. Similarly, neuroscientists have come to learn a lot about music cognition by studying music-specific disorders. Even though music is most often viewed from a "historical perspective rather than a biological one" music has significantly gained the attention of neuroscientists all around the world. For many centuries music has been strongly associated with art and culture. The reason for this increased interest in music is because it "provides a tool to study numerous aspects of neuroscience, from motor skill learning to emotion".

Auditory arrhythmia is the inability to rhythmically perform music, to keep time, and to replicate musical or rhythmic patterns. It has been caused by damage to the cerebrum or rewiring of the brain.

An individual with this condition has an especially difficult time maintaining a steady beat, and even has difficulty following along to a steady rhythm. Before it was a known disorder, it was thought that these individuals were just severely uncoordinated, and therefore were unable to follow along with the music. It has been discovered recently that problems with rhythm in Schizophrenia, Parkinson's, and Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder are also found to have a correlation to rhythm deficiencies.

There are a range of music-specific disorders that afflict many individuals in any given population. However, since music cognition is a newly developing area of interest in the neuroscientific community, a lot more research is yet to be done and the knowledge that currently exists is vague and indefinitive. The inability to recognize or reproduce music is a major psychological disorder, as it incapacitates an individual to appreciate music and experience its therapeutic powers. Music is known for its healing and relaxing properties, therefore it is even more important that more robust experiments and research be performed in this relatively new area of neuroscience.

Generally, humans have the ability to hear musical beat and rhythm beginning in infancy. Some people, however, are unable to identify beat and rhythm of music, suffering from what is known as beat deafness. Beat deafness is a newly discovered form of congenital amusia, in which people lack the ability to identify or “hear” the beat in a piece of music. Unlike most hearing impairments in which an individual is unable to hear any sort of sound stimuli, those with beat deafness are generally able to hear normally, but unable to identify beat and rhythm in music. Those with beat deafness are also unable to dance in step to any type of music. Even people who do not dance well can at least coordinate their movements to the song they are listening to, because they can easily keep time to the beat.