[Selected performances in speech perception in children with APD].

BACKGROUND

The ability to detect phonemes in spoken language (phonological processing) is equally important for first and secondary language acquisition (reading, spelling, orthography). Nevertheless, it is a subject of some controversy whether psychometric tests of auditory verbal stimuli (linguistic load) are to take in account in the diagnostics of (central) auditory processing disorders (C)APD.

METHODS

Data in phonological synthesis and in verbal auditory closure, obtained from a research database of children who were audiologically and psychologically diagnosed as with auditory processing deficits, were analyzed retrospectively. These data were collected by a clinical psychologist in the diagnostic setting, who administered the subtests Sound Blending and Auditory Closure out of the German version of the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities.

PARTICIPANTS

Three clinical groups: n=51 with monosymptomatic APD; n=33 with APD+developmental language impairment; n=15 with APD and developmental dyslexia and one control group (typically developing children without clinical developmental disorders).

INCLUSION CRITERIA: normal hearing status and nonverbal intelligence, monolingual German-speaking, no suspicion of attention deficit hyperactivity disorders and visual perception disorders and scoring > or = 2 SDs below the reference mean in at least 2 auditory symptoms.

RESULTS

The controls showed the best performance in "Sound Blending" (T-score 49.2; SD 8.8), followed by children with monosymptomatic APD (T-score 48.0; SD 9.5) and children with co-morbid conditions (APD+developmental dyslexia: T-score 45.9; SD 6.0; APD+language impairment: T-score 44.4; SD 8.7). The differences between the groups did not reach statistical significance. Test scores in "Auditory Closure" were consistently poorer in the APD-groups (children with monosymptomatic APD: T-score 50.9; SD 8.8; children with APD+developmental dyslexia: T-score 49.6; SD 7.7; children with APD+developmental language impairment: T-score 47.1; SD 10.5) than for the normal group (T-score 54.9; SD 7.5). None of the groups performed any differently from the controls.

CONCLUSIONS

Because the acoustic-verbal automatic dimensions of sound blending and auditory closure did not differentiate the 4 study groups, experts should renounce of them in the diagnostics of (C)APDs.