Journal
PEDIATRICS
Volume 126, Issue 2, Pages E382-E390Publisher
AMER ACAD PEDIATRICS
DOI: 10.1542/peds.2009-2826
Keywords
hearing; listening; communication; language impairment; learning disorder; spectral resolution; temporal resolution
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Funding
- Medical Research Council
- Nottingham University Hospitals National Health Service Trust
- Oticon Foundation
- MRC [MC_U135097130] Funding Source: UKRI
- Medical Research Council [MC_U135097130] Funding Source: researchfish
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OBJECTIVE: We tested the specific hypothesis that the presentation of auditory processing disorder (APD) is related to a sensory processing deficit. METHODS: Randomly chosen, 6- to 11-year-old children with normal hearing (N = 1469) were tested in schools in 4 regional centers across the United Kingdom. Caregivers completed questionnaires regarding their participating children's listening and communication skills. Children completed a battery of audiometric, auditory processing (AP), speech-in-noise, cognitive (IQ, memory, language, and literacy), and attention (auditory and visual) tests. AP measures separated the sensory and nonsensory contributions to spectral and temporal perception. RESULTS: AP improved with age. Poor-for-age AP was significantly related to poor cognitive, communication, and speech-in-noise performance (P < .001). However, sensory elements of perception were only weakly related to those performance measures (r < 0.1), and correlations between auditory perception and cognitive scores were generally low (r = 0.1-0.3). Multivariate regression analysis showed that response variability in the AP tests, reflecting attention, and cognitive scores were the best predictors of listening, communication, and speech-in-noise skills. CONCLUSIONS: Presenting symptoms of APD were largely unrelated to auditory sensory processing. Response variability and cognitive performance were the best predictors of poor communication and listening. We suggest that APD is primarily an attention problem and that clinical diagnosis and management, as well as further research, should be based on that premise. Pediatrics 2010; 126: e382-e390
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