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Quantitative Assessment of Cortical Auditory-tactile Processing in Children with Disabilities
Published on: January 29, 2014
[Sequential information processing in children with and without auditory processing disorder]
1Phoniatrisch/Pädaudiologische Psychologie an der Abt. Medizinische Psychologie und Medizinische Soziologie, Universitätsmedizin Göttingen, Waldweg 37, 37073, Göttingen, Deutschland. ckiese@med.uni-goettingen.de
Insights
Children with auditory processing disorders (APD) may have a primary auditory sequential processing deficit, even with normal visual sequential processing skills. This suggests APD is not solely a unimodal auditory impairment.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Speech and Hearing Sciences
Context:
- Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) is often considered a unimodal auditory impairment, but its nature remains controversial.
- Sequential processing abilities are crucial for language and cognitive development in children.
- Understanding the modality of APD deficits is essential for targeted interventions.
Purpose:
- To investigate whether sequential processing deficits in children with Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) are limited to the auditory modality.
- To compare visual and auditory sequential processing skills in children with APD (monosymptomatic, DLD+APD, dyslexia+APD) and typically developing controls.
Summary:
- Children with APD, particularly those with DLD+APD and monosymptomatic APD, showed significantly lower performance in auditory sequential processing compared to visual sequential processing.
- While visual sequential processing was generally within normal limits across groups, auditory sequential processing was below age norms for clinical groups.
- A primary auditory sequential processing deficit is indicated, as normal visual performance does not rule out bimodal or pansensory deficits in APD.
Impact:
- Findings challenge the view of APD as solely a unimodal auditory disorder.
- Highlights the need for comprehensive assessments of both auditory and visual sequential processing in children with APD.
- Informs the development of more effective, multi-modal interventions for children experiencing APD and related language or learning difficulties.
Background:
It is a controversial issue whether sequential processing in children with auditory processing disorders (APD) is a unimodal auditory impairment.
Patients And Methods:
Normal achieving controls (n=12; mean age: 101.1 months; SD 20.3) and children referred to clinical facilities for assessment including children with monosymptomatic APD (n=25; mean age: 90.8 months; SD 9.8), children with developmental language disorder (DLD]) + APD (n=11; mean age: 89.5 months; SD 14.9), children with dyslexia + APD (n=10; mean age: 113.8 months; SD 17.1) were compared using the subtest digit recall of the German version of the K-ABC (Melchers & Preuss 2001) and the K-ABC subtest hand movements in the visual modality.
Results:
On average all groups tended to perform alike in visual sequential processing and memory (T-score>50). Normal controls (non-APD) showed on average the best test performance (T-score 57.4; SD 10.5), but the mean performance did not differ significantly from children with APD. All groups also presented on average normal test performance in the auditory modality however, children of the clinical groups were below the age mean (DLD + APD: T-W 43.1; SD 6.8; monosymptomatic APD: T-W 45.8; SD 9.8; dyslexia + APD: 46.7; SD5.8). Children with DLD + APD and those with monosymptomatic APD exhibited a significantly lower but not poor performance in auditory processing of sequences compared to their performance in visual sequential processing. The results of auditory and visual processing of sequences were significantly correlated in the clinical groups DLD + APD (0.58) and monosymptomatic APD (0.34), but not in the smallest group dyslexia + APD (0.48) and in normal achieving controls (0.32).
Conclusion:
On the basis of the results of the present study it may be concluded that a normal test performance on visual measure does not exclude a bimodal or pansensory seriation disorder in children with APD. It does, however, indicate the existence of a primary auditory sequential processing deficit, because at least the processing of phonological and visual stimuli was not separately carried out in children with DLD + APD.
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