Normative data on the Auditory memory test battery for ages 9 through 13 years

Abstract

Auditory short-term memory (STM) is important for speech and language development and for learning new information presented auditorily.Research has shown that auditory STM ability is of a developmental nature in the 5 through 8 year age range for a variety of auditory stimuli. Many tests and subtests are available to measure auditory STM ability, however one test, the Auditory Memory Test Battery (AMTB) measures auditory memory span and memory for sequence for 5 types of stimuli. The results of this investigation showed an overall improvement in the mean scores for all subtests except sentences. However, the 9 and 10 year old subjects performed fairly equally for all subtests, and the mean scores of the 11 year olds exceeded those of the 12 and 13 year olds on all subtests for both span and sequence. A detailed look at the standard deviations indicated wide variances within age groups and some overlap between age groups for all subtests 3 except sentences. A multiple analysis of variance (MANOVA) and a 2-tailed t-test revealed statistically significant age-related differences among the 11 through young adult subjects for the subtests of digits--span and sequence, related words--span and sequence, and unrelated words--span and sequence.The information obtained in this study revealed a developmental plateau for auditory STM at the 9 to 10 year age range. A developmental change in auditory STM appeared to take place from 11 years of age to young adulthood for all subtests except sentences and nonsense syllables. The results support the evaluation of auditory STM through adolescence, as there appears to be continued maturation of this ability up to young adulthood. The AMTB is convenient in that it measures memory for span and for sequence for a variety of stimuli within one battery. However, the wide variance of scores within age groups indicate that the AMTB may demonstrate too much variance to be useful in its current form in a clinical setting. Further refinement of the AMTB to establish a clearer, homogeneous pattern is needed before it can become a useful clinical tool.