Development of an auditory test battery for young children: a pilot study

Abstract

This article describes the development and results of a pilot study with a recently developed auditory test battery for 4-6-year-old Dutch children. The test battery consisted of a sustained auditory attention (SAA) test, a dichotic words (DW) test, a binaural masking-level difference (BMLD) test, an auditory word discrimination (AWD) test, a gap detection (GD) test and a test of phonemic awareness, the Lindamood Auditory Conceptualization (LAC) test. Our results show that this test battery can be administered successfully to children aged 4 years and older. Most tests showed a clear effect of chronological age; the strongest age effects were found for the DW test and the LAC test. The BMLD test was the only test for which no significant age effect was found in this group of children. A small, but significant right-ear advantage was found on the DW test, for the 4- and the 6-year-olds. Correlations between subtests were in general rather high, suggesting that several tests in this test battery may be tapping into similar auditory abilities.

Age related changes in auditory processes in children aged 6 to 10 years

“…As the variability in performance in this age group was not very large, the normative data obtained on them can be utilized usefully to make early diagnosis of the condition. Unlike most studies reported in literature, Stollman, Neijenhuis et al [12], in a study on Dutch children, also demonstrated that tests for auditory processing can be conducted on children as young as 4 years of age. M a n u s c r i p t 22 While the 6-year-old children in the current study were able to carry out most of the tests, the results indicate that it is difficult to administer DPT in this age group.…”

“…Earlier studies have also reported of no gender differences in tests for auditory processing or higher cognitive functioning. These tests include speech-in-noise [12], DCV [34], DPT [35] as well as auditory memory and sequencing [36][37][38]. Neuroimaging studies of the brain of girls and boys have documented structural differences in the volume of the brain [39].…”

“…The effect of age has been demonstrated for the speech-in-noise test [40,41], DCV test [12,42] , DPT [18,43] as well as auditory memory and sequencing test [37,38,44]. Although a direct comparison across studies is difficult as the age ranges studied and the stimuli used vary from study to study, the consensus is that performance on auditory processing tests improves with age.…”

“…It has been substantiated that the cortical system is immature in children and continues to develop in adolescents [5][6][7]. Past research also indicates that different auditory processes do not mature in a similar manner but take different maturational courses [8][9][10][11][12][13]. A possible reason for the difference in maturation could be on account of the different cortical or brainstem areas that control them.…”

“…However, Stollman, Neijenhuis et al [12] demonstrated that auditory processing tests that evaluated sustained auditory attention, binaural hearing, temporal processing, and phonological coding could be carried out effectively in children aged 4 to 6 years of age.…”