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Published on: January 29, 2014
Auditory processing, co-morbidities, and parental report of sleep disturbance in children with auditory processing
1Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Paediatric Audiology Service, Fulwood Clinic, 4 Lytham Road, Fulwood, Preston, PR2 8JB, UK.
Insights
Sleep disturbance is common in children with auditory processing disorder (APD), affecting 55%. Pragmatic language impairment and anxiety are key predictors of sleep issues in APD, not ADHD or ODD.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric audiology
- Neurodevelopmental disorders
- Sleep medicine
Background:
- Auditory processing disorder (APD) affects children's ability to interpret auditory information.
- Sleep disturbances are frequently reported in pediatric populations but understudied in APD.
- Understanding comorbidities is crucial for comprehensive APD management.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine the prevalence of sleep disturbance in children diagnosed with APD.
- To investigate the relationship between sleep disturbance and auditory processing abilities in APD.
- To identify co-occurring conditions that predict sleep disturbance in children with APD.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of data from 109 children (aged 6-16) diagnosed with APD.
- Auditory processing abilities assessed using five SCAN-3 tests.
- Sleep concerns, language impairment (LI), ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), and anxiety evaluated through parental history and standardized scales (CCC-2, SNAP-IV, ASC-ASD).
Main Results:
- A high prevalence of sleep disturbance (55%) was observed in children with APD.
- No significant differences in auditory processing abilities were found between children with and without sleep disturbance.
- Sleep-disturbed children with APD showed significantly higher rates of pragmatic language impairment, hyperactivity, oppositional defiant symptoms, and anxiety.
- Pragmatic language impairment and anxiety were identified as significant predictors of sleep disturbance in APD.
Conclusions:
- Sleep disturbance is highly prevalent in children with APD and warrants screening.
- Pragmatic language impairment and anxiety are key predictors of sleep disturbance in APD.
- ADHD symptoms and ODD were not found to predict sleep disturbance in this APD cohort.
Objectives:
To evaluate the prevalence of sleep disturbance and its relationship with auditory processing (AP) and co-morbidities in children diagnosed with auditory processing disorder (APD).
Methods:
Data from 109 children (Males = 59, Females = 50) with mean non-verbal intelligence quotient (NVIQ) of 89.44 (SD:18.16), aged between 6 and 16 years (mean: 10 years 7 months; SD: 2 years 9 months) with a diagnosis of APD were analysed. Participants performed ≤1.33 SD below the mean in two or more out of five SCAN-3 diagnostic APD tests that included 'Filtered Words' (FW), 'Auditory Figure Ground 0 dB' (AFG0), 'Competing Words-Directed Ear' (CW-DE), 'Competing Sentences' (CS) and 'Time Compressed Sentences' (TCS). Concern about sleep in addition to other symptoms and medical history were documented from structured parental history sheet which forms part of the routine APD assessment. Language impairment (LI), attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder (ADHD) and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), and anxiety were evaluated using the 'Children's Communication Checklist-2' (CCC-2), 'Swanson Nolan and Pelham rating scale' (SNAP-IV) and 'Anxiety Scale for Children-Autism Spectrum Disorder' (ASC-ASD) respectively.
Results:
Sixty children had sleep disturbance, a prevalence of 55% (95% CI 45.2%-64.6%). The two groups of APD children, with (n = 49) and without sleep (n = 60) disturbance, did not vary in their auditory processing abilities. The sleep disturbed group had significant issues with pragmatic language impairment, hyperactivity/impulsivity, oppositional defiant symptoms and anxiety compared to the group without sleep disturbance when they were analysed separately. After the variables were considered in step wise fashion in binary logistic regression analyses, only pragmatic language impairment and anxiety predicted sleep disturbance (p < .01).
Conclusion:
In APD the prevalence of sleep disturbance is high, justifying screening within a transdisciplinary APD assessment protocol. Sleep disturbance in APD is predicted by pragmatic language impairment and anxiety, but not by ADHD symptoms or ODD.
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