Listening and Processing Skills in Young School Children with a History of Developmental Phonological Disorder

Abstract

There is a lack of longitudinal studies on the broad-based outcomes in children with Developmental Phonological Disorder (DPD). The aim of this study was to investigate listening and processing skills in a clinical sample of 7-to-10-year-old children diagnosed with DPD in their preschool years and compare these to same-aged typically developing (TD) children. The Evaluation of Children’s Listening and Processing Skills (ECLiPS) was completed by parents of 115 children with DPD and by parents of 46 TD children. The total ECLiPS mean score, and the five subscale mean scores, the proportion of children with clinically significant difficulties (≤10th percentile), and the proportion of children with co-occurrence of clinically significant difficulties on more than one subscale, were calculated. Results showed that the ECLiPS mean scores did not differ between the groups. There was no difference between groups regarding language and literacy, but a higher proportion of children with DPD than TD had difficulties in the total score, speech, and auditory processing, environmental and auditory sensitivity, and pragmatic and social skills. In addition, 33.9% of children with DPD had clinically significant difficulties in two or more subscales compared to 10.9% of TD children.

Preliminary Validation of the Children’s Auditory Performance Scale (CHAPS) and the Auditory Processing Domain Questionnaire (APDQ) in Greek Cypriot Children

“…Our findings align with previous reports and underscore the utility of CHAPS and APDQ as effective tools for identifying listening difficulties. We concur with the recommendations that questionnaires can be used to identify children at risk for auditory processing disorders (APD) across diverse populations, as supported by the literature [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 15 , 18 , 31 , 32 , 33 ]. Furthermore, our findings add the SSD population to the clinical groups that might benefit from the identification of auditory processing through the CHAPS and APDQ questionnaires [ 11 , 12 ].…”

“…A recent systematic review indicated that APD may be a major underlying factor in children with SSD, as lower scores on auditory processing tasks are often observed in children with varying SSD [ 10 , 29 ]. Kalnak and Nakena von Mentez [ 31 ] reported that children with phonological disorders have significant auditory processing and auditory sensitivity difficulties compared to children with typical development.…”