Nature of Auditory Processing Disorder in Children

Moore, David R.; Ferguson, Melanie A.; Edmondson-Jones, A. Mark; Ratib, Sonia; Riley, Alison

doi:10.1542/peds.2009-2826

Cited by 261 publications

(348 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Because IMAP minimizes procedural confounds, and children cannot begin the test until they demonstrate they understand it, we can be confident in ascribing the different performances of these two children to test-specific factors for each child. The inclusion in the IMAP battery of paired AP tests 5 and a range of cognitive tests further permits us to explore the reasons for this individual variation. We recently completed a UK population-based study using IMAP 5 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Making Sense of Listening: The IMAP Test Battery

Barry

Ferguson

Moore

2010

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The ability to hear is only the first step towards making sense of the range of information contained in an auditory signal. Of equal importance are the abilities to extract and use the information encoded in the auditory signal. We refer to these as listening skills (or auditory processing AP). Deficits in these skills are associated with delayed language and literacy development, though the nature of the relevant deficits and their causal connection with these delays is hotly debated.When a child is referred to a health professional with normal hearing and unexplained difficulties in listening, or associated delays in language or literacy development, they should ideally be assessed with a combination of psychoacoustic (AP) tests, suitable for children and for use in a clinic, together with cognitive tests to measure attention, working memory, IQ, and language skills. Such a detailed examination needs to be relatively short and within the technical capability of any suitably qualified professional. Current tests for the presence of AP deficits tend to be poorly constructed and inadequately validated within the normal population. They have little or no reference to the presenting symptoms of the child, and typically include a linguistic component. Poor performance may thus reflect problems with language rather than with AP. To assist in the assessment of children with listening difficulties, pediatric audiologists need a single, standardized child-appropriate test battery based on the use of language-free stimuli.We present the IMAP test battery which was developed at the MRC Institute of Hearing Research to supplement tests currently used to investigate cases of suspected AP deficits. IMAP assesses a range of relevant auditory and cognitive skills and takes about one hour to complete. It has been standardized in 1500 normally-hearing children from across the UK, aged 6-11 years. Since its development, it has been successfully used in a number of large scale studies both in the UK and the USA. IMAP provides measures for separating out sensory from cognitive contributions to hearing. It further limits confounds due to procedural effects by presenting tests in a child-friendly game-format. Stimulus-generation, management of test protocols and control of test presentation is mediated by the IHR-STAR software platform. This provides a standardized methodology for a range of applications and ensures replicable procedures across testers. IHR-STAR provides a flexible, user-programmable environment that currently has additional applications for hearing screening, mapping cochlear implant electrodes, and academic research or teaching. Video LinkThe video component of this article can be found at http://www.jove.com/video/2139/ ProtocolThis protocol is aimed at both researchers and clinicians. It briefly outlines: (i) the IMAP ('IHR multicentre study of auditory processing') test battery which is based primarily on the use of nonverbal AP tests, (ii) information on the factors introduced into the battery to ensur...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Making Sense of Listening: The IMAP Test Battery

Barry

Ferguson

Moore

2010

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“…It has been hypothesized that deficits seen in children with impaired auditory processing might not only arise from deficits in the ascending auditory pathway (bottom-up) but also from impaired top-down processes possibly also affecting the efferent central auditory system, i.e., structures that mediate auditory processing by attention and memory (Moore et al 2010;Moore 2012). Other studies reported that correlations between auditory tasks and cognitive measures are weak or non-existent (Rosen et al 2010), and that, in those children, attention and memory only explain a small amount of variance (Sharma et al 2009).…”

Section: Discrimination Deficits and Possible Top-down Engagementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is no doubt that any test performed by a child uses cognitive resources. However, some researchers argue that APD is, at least partially, caused by higher-order impairments (Moore et al 2010;BSA 2011), while others claim that APD and attentional problems are not always interrelated (Sharma et al 2009). Second, there is an ongoing debate about the relation of APD and neurodevelopmental disorders such as specific language impairment (SLI) and dyslexia (King et al 2003;Sharma et al 2006Sharma et al , 2009Ferguson et al 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Auditory Processing Disorders with and without Central Auditory Discrimination Deficits

Ludwig

Fuchs

Kruse

et al. 2014

JARO

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Auditory processing disorder (APD) is defined as a processing deficit in the auditory modality and spans multiple processes. To date, APD diagnosis is mostly based on the utilization of speech material. Adequate nonspeech tests that allow differentiation between an actual central hearing disorder and related disorders such as specific language impairments are still not adequately available. In the present study, 84 children between 6 and 17 years of age (clinical group), referred to three audiological centers for APD diagnosis, were evaluated with standard audiological tests and additional auditory discrimination tests. Latter tests assessed the processing of basic acoustic features at two different stages of the ascending central auditory system: (1) auditory brainstem processing was evaluated by quantifying interaural frequency, level, and signal duration discrimination (interaural tests). (2) Diencephalic/telencephalic processing was assessed by varying the same acoustic parameters (plus signals with sinusoidal amplitude modulation), but presenting the test signals in conjunction with noise pulses to the contralateral ear (dichotic signal/ noise tests). Data of children in the clinical group were referenced to normative data obtained from more than 300 normally developing healthy school children. The results in the audiological and the discrimination tests diverged widely. Of the 39 children that were diagnosed with APD in the audiological clinic, 30 had deficits in auditory performance. Even more alarming was the fact that of the 45 children with a negative APD diagnosis, 32 showed clear signs of a central hearing deficit. Based on these results, we suggest revising current diagnostic procedure to evaluate APD in order to more clearly differentiate between central auditory processing deficits and higher-order (cognitive and/or language) processing deficits.

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“…In fact, several reviews and studies give an indication that APD tends to coexist with learning and language disorders [1] . There is evidence that shows that higher-order cortical functions, particularly attention, play a role in problems with listening, which implies that this is not a problem of the auditory pathway on its own [2,3] .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Also, these patients tend to provide inappropriate responses when asked for particular information [4][5][6] . It has also been reported that children referred for testing for APD generally have other forms of deficiencies, mainly in cognitive function and attention [3] .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Auditory Processing Disorder (APD): Progress in Diagnostics So Far. A Mini-Review on Imaging Techniques

Micallef

2016

Int Adv Otol

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Auditory processing disorder (APD) is a disorder that affects the perception of sound, both verbal and non-verbal. Patients who are generally diagnosed with APD present with abnormal hearing but have normal audiograms. There is no gold standard investigation for APD and no standardized criteria for diagnosis. Because of its disabling effect and the overlap that exists with other neurodevelopmental disorders, there is an urgent need to develop tools and criteria for appropriate diagnosis. There is a current significant focus in research on imaging techniques that can possibly be used in the future for the appropriate diagnosis of APD. Over the years, several imaging techniques have contributed significantly to defining this disorder. To date, no studies have reported the routine use of imaging for the diagnosis of APD.

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Nature of Auditory Processing Disorder in Children

Cited by 261 publications

References 33 publications

Making Sense of Listening: The IMAP Test Battery

Making Sense of Listening: The IMAP Test Battery

Auditory Processing Disorders with and without Central Auditory Discrimination Deficits

Auditory Processing Disorder (APD): Progress in Diagnostics So Far. A Mini-Review on Imaging Techniques

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