Abstract:Research on the role of auditory processing in communication disorders springs from a variety of theoretical perspectives and assumptions, and this variety, combined with controversies over the interpretation of research results, makes it difficult to draw clinical implications from the literature. Neurophysiological research methods are a promising route to better understanding of auditory processing. Progress in theory development and its clinical application is most likely to be made when researchers from d… Show more
“…When a purely sensory measure, presumably reflecting only bottom-up processing in the central auditory system, is used the relationship is lost. It may be noted that the many reports in the communication disorders literature showing a relationship between AP and language/literacy problems among children with specific language impairment (SLI; Miller, 2011;Tallal, Miller, Bedi, Byma, & Wang, 1996) and dyslexia (Amitay, Ben-Yehudah, Banai, & Ahissar, 2002) have all used what are called here individual tests of AP. This suggests that, rather than measuring impaired sensory processing and, in particular, impaired temporal processing, they were actually measuring the ability of the children described in their reports to perform the cognitive aspects of the AP tasks used (also called the 'procedural' aspects of the task; Ortiz & Wright, 2009 Since only a small minority of children are thought to have APD, their results might be masked in a correlation analysis by the vast majority who do not have APD (Chermak & Musiek, 1997;Hind, Haines-Bazrafshan, Benton, Brassington, & Towle, 2011), explaining the relatively weak correlations in Table 1, even for the individual AP tests.…”
“…When a purely sensory measure, presumably reflecting only bottom-up processing in the central auditory system, is used the relationship is lost. It may be noted that the many reports in the communication disorders literature showing a relationship between AP and language/literacy problems among children with specific language impairment (SLI; Miller, 2011;Tallal, Miller, Bedi, Byma, & Wang, 1996) and dyslexia (Amitay, Ben-Yehudah, Banai, & Ahissar, 2002) have all used what are called here individual tests of AP. This suggests that, rather than measuring impaired sensory processing and, in particular, impaired temporal processing, they were actually measuring the ability of the children described in their reports to perform the cognitive aspects of the AP tasks used (also called the 'procedural' aspects of the task; Ortiz & Wright, 2009 Since only a small minority of children are thought to have APD, their results might be masked in a correlation analysis by the vast majority who do not have APD (Chermak & Musiek, 1997;Hind, Haines-Bazrafshan, Benton, Brassington, & Towle, 2011), explaining the relatively weak correlations in Table 1, even for the individual AP tests.…”
“…Similarities in the symptoms of (C)APD and LI have been described, and several researchers have investigated the performance of children with LI on behavioral tests of central auditory processing (Dawes and Bishop, 2009;Ferguson et al, 2011;Miller, 2011). For instance, children with LI exhibit abnormal temporal processing and discrimination of the frequency (Lowe and Campbell, 1965;Tallal and Piercy, 1973,;McArthur and Bishop, 2004;Mengler et al, 2005).…”
“…A close relationship was reported between APD and other developmental disorders such as SLI Sharma et al 2009;Boscariol et al 2011;Ferguson et al 2011) or dyslexia (King et al 2003Miller 2011). Some authors argue that there is hardly any difference between these impairments, and the fact that they may or may not co-occur (Dawes and Bishop 2009; Miller 2011) limits any attempt to disentangle whether and how these disorders are causally linked.…”
Section: Children With Auditory Processing Disordersmentioning
Auditory processing disorder (APD) is defined as a processing deficit in the auditory modality and spans multiple processes. To date, APD diagnosis is mostly based on the utilization of speech material. Adequate nonspeech tests that allow differentiation between an actual central hearing disorder and related disorders such as specific language impairments are still not adequately available. In the present study, 84 children between 6 and 17 years of age (clinical group), referred to three audiological centers for APD diagnosis, were evaluated with standard audiological tests and additional auditory discrimination tests. Latter tests assessed the processing of basic acoustic features at two different stages of the ascending central auditory system: (1) auditory brainstem processing was evaluated by quantifying interaural frequency, level, and signal duration discrimination (interaural tests). (2) Diencephalic/telencephalic processing was assessed by varying the same acoustic parameters (plus signals with sinusoidal amplitude modulation), but presenting the test signals in conjunction with noise pulses to the contralateral ear (dichotic signal/ noise tests). Data of children in the clinical group were referenced to normative data obtained from more than 300 normally developing healthy school children. The results in the audiological and the discrimination tests diverged widely. Of the 39 children that were diagnosed with APD in the audiological clinic, 30 had deficits in auditory performance. Even more alarming was the fact that of the 45 children with a negative APD diagnosis, 32 showed clear signs of a central hearing deficit. Based on these results, we suggest revising current diagnostic procedure to evaluate APD in order to more clearly differentiate between central auditory processing deficits and higher-order (cognitive and/or language) processing deficits.
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