Auditory temporal-organization abilities in school-age children with peripheral hearing loss.

PURPOSE

The objective was to assess auditory sequential organization (ASO) ability in children with and without hearing loss.

METHOD

Forty children 9 to 12 years old participated in the study: 12 with sensory hearing loss (HL), 12 with central auditory processing disorder (CAPD), and 16 with normal hearing. They performed an ASO task in which they were asked to recall 2, 3, and 5 verbal and nonverbal stimuli with an interstimulus interval (ISI) of 425 ms as well as sequences of 2 elements with an ISI of 20 or 1,000 ms.

RESULTS

No significant difference was found between the group of children with HL and the 2 other groups on nonverbal stimuli in all testing conditions. Regardless of ISI duration or number of elements in the sequence, children with HL had significantly fewer correct responses than children with normal hearing and children with CAPD for the verbal stimuli /ba/-/da/. Children with HL had significantly better performance than children with CAPD for the verbal a/-/da/ when the number of elements in the sequence varied.

CONCLUSIONS

Children with sensory HL showed impaired ASO ability when recalling verbal /ba/-/da/. Results suggest that hearing loss can induce a specific signature when processing these verbal stimuli.