OBJECTIVE: We tested the specific hypothesis that the presentation of auditory processing disorder (APD) is related to a sensory processing deficit. METHODS: Randomly chosen, 6- to 11-year-old children with normal hearing (N = 1469) were tested in schools in 4 regional centers across the United Kingdom. Caregivers completed questionnaires regarding their participating children9s listening and communication skills. Children completed a battery of audiometric, auditory processing (AP), speech-in-noise, cognitive (IQ, memory, language, and literacy), and attention (auditory and visual) tests. AP measures separated the sensory and nonsensory contributions to spectral and temporal perception. RESULTS: AP improved with age. Poor-for-age AP was significantly related to poor cognitive, communication, and speech-in-noise performance (P CONCLUSIONS: Presenting symptoms of APD were largely unrelated to auditory sensory processing. Response variability and cognitive performance were the best predictors of poor communication and listening. We suggest that APD is primarily an attention problem and that clinical diagnosis and management, as well as further research, should be based on that premise.

Nature of Auditory Processing Disorder in Children

Purpose Parental reports of communication, listening, and behavior in children receiving a clinical diagnosis of specific language impairment (SLI) or auditory processing disorder (APD) were compar...

Communication, Listening, Cognitive and Speech Perception Skills in Children With Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) or Specific Language Impairment (SLI)

Auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) and behavioral tests were used to evaluate auditory processing in 10 children aged 7 to 11 years who were diagnosed as learning disabled (LD). AEPs included auditory brainstem responses (ABRs), middle latency responses (MLRs), and late cortical responses (P1, N1, P2, P3). Late cortical responses were recorded using an active listening oddball procedure. Auditory processing disorders were suspected in the LD children after a psychologist found phonologic processing and auditory memory problems. A control group of 10 age- and gender-matched children with no hearing or reported learning difficulties was also tested. Teacher ratings of classroom listening and SCAN Competing Words and Staggered Spondaic Word scores were poorer in the LD children. There were minor ABR latency differences between the two groups. Wave Na of the MLR was later and Nb was smaller in the LD group. The main differences in cortical responses were that P1 was earlier and P3 was later and smaller in the LD group.

Auditory brainstem response, middle latency response, and late cortical evoked potentials in children with learning disabilities

Children with listening difficulties, but normal audiometry, may be diagnosed with APD. The diagnosis is typically based on poor performance on tests of perception of both non-speech and speech stimuli. However, non-speech test results correlate only weakly with evaluations of speech-in-noise processing, cognitive skills, and caregiver evaluations of listening ability. The interpretation of speech test results is confounded by the involvement of language processing mechanisms. Overall, listening ability is associated more with higher-level, cognitive and analytic processing than with lower-level sensory processing. Current diagnosis of a child with APD, rather than another problem (e.g. language impairment, LI), is determined more by the referral route than by the symptoms. Co-occurrence with other learning problems suggests that APD may be a symptom of a more varied neurodevelopmental disorder. Alternately, APD has been proposed as a cause of language-based disorders, but there is no one-to-one mapping between listening and language among individuals. Screening for APD may be most appropriately based on a well-validated, caregiver questionnaire that captures the fundamental problem of listening difficulties and identifies areas for further assessment and management. This approach has proved successful for LI, and may in future serve as a metric to help assess other, objective testing methods.

Evolving concepts of developmental auditory processing disorder (APD): a British Society of Audiology APD special interest group 'white paper'.

A survey of auditory processing (AP) diagnostic practices was mailed to all licensed audiologists in the State of Maryland and sent as an electronic mail attachment to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and Educational Audiology Association Internet forums Common AP protocols (25 from the Internet, 28 from audiologists in Maryland) included requiring basic audiologic testing, using questionnaires, and administering dichotic listening, monaural low-redundancy speech, temporal processing, and electrophysiologic tests Some audiologists also administer binaural interaction, attention, memory, and speech-language/psychological/educational tests and incorporate a classroom observation The various AP batteries presently administered appear to be based on the availability of AP tests with well-documented normative data Resources for obtaining AP tests are listed

The auditory processing battery: survey of common practices.

The observed listening performances of 64 children with central auditory processing (CAP) disorders were obtained from teachers using the Children’s Auditory Processing Performance Scale. The data ...

Listening Characteristics of Children With Central Auditory Processing Disorders

Two hearing aids and three telephone receivers were used to compare electroacoustic and word intelligibility data for hearing aid microphone reception versus telephone/telephone and telephone/telec...

Performance characteristics for hearing aid microphone versus telephone and telephone/telecoil reception modes.

A comparative evaluation was done on the speech intelligibility of two hearing aids, one with an inductance loop and the other with a conventional body unit. Each aid received and reproduced 50 mon...

J. Curtis Tannahill

Papers

Listening Characteristics of Children With Central Auditory Processing Disorders

Performance characteristics for hearing aid microphone versus telephone and telephone/telecoil reception modes.

The Intelligibility of Speech by Hearing Aids on Inductance Loop and Microphone Modes of Signal Reception