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Updated: May 20, 2026

Behavioral Assessment of Hearing in 2 to 4 Year-old Children: A Two-interval, Observer-based Procedure Using Conditioned Play-based Responses
Published on: January 23, 2017
Listening difficulties in children: bottom-up and top-down contributions
1MRC Institute of Hearing Research, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK. david.moore@ihr.mrc.ac.uk
None:
The brain mechanisms of hearing include large regions of the anterior temporal, prefrontal, and inferior parietal cortex, and an extensive network of descending connections between the cortex and sub-cortical components of what is presently known as the auditory system. One important function of these additional ('top-down') mechanisms for hearing is to modulate the ascending, sensory ('bottom-up') auditory information from the ear. In children, normal, immature hearing during the first decade of life is more strongly influenced by top-down mechanisms than in adulthood. In some children, impaired top-down function presents a significant challenge to their auditory perception, often associated with a range of language and learning difficulties and sometimes called auditory processing disorder.
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