Peter Varghese, Wong Kogo, Narne Vijaya Kumar, Sharma Mridula, Purdy Suzanne C, McMahon Catherine
Audiology Section, Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia; HEARing Co-operative Research Centre, Australia; MARCS Institute, University of Western Sydney.
HEARing Co-operative Research Centre, Australia; Australian Hearing, Sydney, Australia.
J Am Acad Audiol. 2014 Feb;25(2):210-8. doi: 10.3766/jaaa.25.2.9.
There are many clinically available tests for the assessment of auditory processing skills in children and adults. However, there is limited data available on the maturational effects on the performance on these tests.
The current study investigated maturational effects on auditory processing abilities using three psychophysical measures: temporal modulation transfer function (TMTF), iterated ripple noise (IRN) perception, and spectral ripple discrimination (SRD).
A cross-sectional study. Three groups of subjects were tested: 10 adults (18-30 yr), 10 older children (12-18 yr), and 10 young children (8-11 yr)
Temporal envelope processing was measured by obtaining thresholds for amplitude modulation detection as a function of modulation frequency (TMTF; 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, and 128 Hz). Temporal fine structure processing was measured using IRN, and spectral processing was measured using SRD.
The results showed that young children had significantly higher modulation thresholds at 4 Hz (TMTF) compared to the other two groups and poorer SRD scores compared to adults. The results on IRN did not differ across groups.
The results suggest that different aspects of auditory processing mature at different age periods and these maturational effects need to be considered while assessing auditory processing in children.
目前有许多临床可用的测试方法用于评估儿童和成人的听觉处理能力。然而，关于成熟度对这些测试表现的影响的数据有限。
本研究使用三种心理物理学测量方法，即时间调制传递函数（TMTF）、迭代波纹噪声（IRN）感知和频谱波纹辨别（SRD），来研究成熟度对听觉处理能力的影响。
一项横断面研究。测试了三组受试者：10名成年人（18 - 30岁）、10名大龄儿童（12 - 18岁）和10名幼儿（8 - 11岁）。
通过获取作为调制频率（TMTF；4、8、16、32、64和128赫兹）函数的调幅检测阈值来测量时间包络处理。使用IRN测量时间精细结构处理，并使用SRD测量频谱处理。
结果显示，与其他两组相比，幼儿在4赫兹（TMTF）时的调制阈值显著更高，并且与成年人相比，SRD得分更低。IRN的结果在各组之间没有差异。
结果表明，听觉处理的不同方面在不同年龄阶段成熟，在评估儿童听觉处理时需要考虑这些成熟度影响。
