Dichotic listening performance of articulatory-impaired children: directed attention, severity, and data analysis

The present study compared the performance of articulatory-impaired and non-articulatory-impaired children on a dichotic word task. The dichotic words were presented under three listening conditions: free recall, directed right, and directed left. In addition, different methods for analyzing ear preferences were computed and compared. Children between 5 and 9 years of age participated. Results indicated no significant differences between articulatory-impaired and non-impaired groups on ear preferences. The directed left condition failed to produce a significant difference between right and left ear scores for both groups. Data analysis showed similarities, except with the use of the phi coefficient. No correlations were established between the number and type of articulation errors and dichotic ear preferences.