Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 21, 2026
Systematic Hearing Performance Evaluation Process for Adolescents with Cochlear Implantation at Early Ages
Published on: March 24, 2023
Cleft palate children: performance in auditory processing tests
Mirela Boscariol1, Karina Delgado André, Mariza Ribeiro Feniman
1FCM, Unicamp.
Insights
Children with cleft palate often struggle with auditory processing, particularly in tests of auditory fusion, dichotic digits, and speech intelligibility. Sound localization and sequential memory showed better performance.
Area of Science:
- Audiology
- Pediatric Otolaryngology
- Developmental Pediatrics
Background:
- Otitis media is common in children with cleft palate and can impact auditory processing.
- Auditory processing disorders (APDs) are frequently observed in children with middle ear alterations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate auditory processing skills in children with isolated cleft palate (PC).
- To identify specific auditory processing deficits in this population.
Main Methods:
- A prospective study involving 20 children (7-11 years) with PC.
- Administered tests included sound localization (SL), memory for verbal (MSSV) and non-verbal sounds (MSSNV), auditory fusion (AFT-R), speech intelligibility (PSI/SSI), alternate disyllables (SSW), and digit dichotic (DD).
Main Results:
- Children with PC demonstrated poorer performance in auditory fusion (AFT-R), digit dichotic (DD), and speech intelligibility with ipsilateral competing messages (PSI/SSIMCI).
- Conversely, sound localization (LS), sequential memory for verbal and non-verbal sounds (MSSV, MSSNV), and speech intelligibility with contralateral competing messages (PSI/SSIMCC) showed better results.
- No significant gender or ear-related differences were observed.
Conclusions:
- Children with cleft palate exhibit specific auditory processing challenges, particularly in tasks requiring temporal processing and selective attention.
- Auditory localization and sequential memory appear to be less affected.
- These findings highlight the need for targeted auditory habilitation strategies for children with cleft palate.
Unlabelled:
Many children with auditory processing disorders have a high prevalence of otitis media, a middle ear alterations greatly prevalent in children with palatine and lip clefts.
Aim:
To check the performance of children with palate cleft alone (PC) in auditory processing tests. Prospective study.
Materials And Methods:
Twenty children (7 to 11 years) with CP were submitted to sound location tests (SL), memory for verbal sounds (MSSV) and non verbal sounds in sequence (MSSNV), Revised auditory fusion (AFT-R), Pediatric test of speech intelligibility/synthetic sentences (PSI/SSI), alternate disyllables (SSW) and digit dichotic (DD). The children performances in the tests were classified in bad and good.
Results:
There was no statistically significant difference between genders and ears. The average values obtained were 2.16, 2.42, 4.37, 60.50 ms; 40.71 to 67.33%; 96.25 to 99.38%; 73.55 to 73.88% and 58.38 to 65.47% respectively for the MSSNV, MSSV, LS, AFT-R, PSI/SSI tests with ipsilateral (PSI/SSIMCI) and contralateral (PSI/SSI/MCC) competitive message, DD and SSW tests.
Conclusion:
A high percentage of children showed worse results in the AFT-R, DD, SSW tests and in the PSI/SSIMCI tests. The best performances happened in the sound location tests, verbal and non-verbal sounds for sequential memory and for PSI/SSIMCC tests.
