Development and Standardization of an Arabic Test for Spatial Listening in Children

Abstract

Background:The ability to understand speech in background noise is a crucial skill for proper communication. Understanding speech through noise is a skill that develops well through adolescence. Spatial listening is the capacity of the auditory system to interpret different spatial paths by which sounds may reach the head. It is used to isolate speech stream from simultaneous noise. Aim of the work: To develop an Arabic test to evaluate spatial processing in children and to standardize the developed test on normal Arabic-speaking children.Methods: Sixty normal hearing children classified into three subgroups. They were tested in a sound treated room using newly developed spatial listening material. The total number of the sentences were 128 sentences which were divided into 16 lists. The first 8 lists were recorded by female voice and the other 8 lists were recorded by male voice. They were mixed using Audacity software with story noise. Four test conditions were examined according to location of target sentences in relation to noise and type of voice. Scoring was done by measuring the SNR 50% which is the level at which the child repeated 50% of the number of words per list. Results:The performance data of the entire study group and subgroups according to age were calculated. The 95% confidence limits were calculated to determine the cut off points for abnormal scores as a function of age for each of the three subgroups. Conclusion:Spatial listening test was developed and standardized for assessment of spatial listening in Arabic-speaking children with age ranging from 6-12 years.