Using Behavioral Tasks to Probe Listening Difficulties in Normal Hearing or Near-to-Normal Hearing Children Up To 14...

Area of Science:

• Audiology
• Developmental Psychology
• Speech-Language Pathology

Background:

• Listening difficulties (LiD) can affect children even with normal hearing.
• Identifying effective behavioral tasks to assess LiD is crucial for timely intervention.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically review and identify the most effective behavioral tasks for probing LiD in normal or near-to-normal hearing children aged 6-14.
• To evaluate the quality and differentiating power of auditory, cognitive, and language tasks.

Main Methods:

• Systematic review of studies from PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science up to January 2025.
• Inclusion of peer-reviewed case-control and cross-sectional studies comparing children with and without LiD.
• Exclusion of children with epilepsy, syndromes, or neurological lesions; quality assessment using ASHA's Levels of Evidence.

Main Results:

• 47 studies included 2700 children (1803 with LiD), evaluating 194 behavioral tasks.
• Auditory, cognitive, and language tasks were categorized; some frequently studied tasks (e.g., gap detection) did not necessarily have higher differentiating power.
• Less studied tasks like suprasegmental tasks show potential; overall study quality is moderate (median 3/7).

Conclusions:

• A wide range of behavioral tasks exist for assessing LiD in children up to 14 years.
• A comprehensive, multidisciplinary assessment is necessary to address the multimodal nature of LiD.
• Moderate evidence quality and high variability necessitate more rigorous research for generalizable findings.