Research Group Healthy Ageing, Allied Health Care and Nursing, Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen, The Netherlands.
Ear Hear. 2018 Jan/Feb;39(1):1-19. doi: 10.1097/AUD.0000000000000479.
Children diagnosed with auditory processing disorders (APD) experience difficulties in auditory functioning and with memory, attention, language, and reading tasks. However, it is not clear whether the behavioral characteristics of these children are distinctive from the behavioral characteristics of children diagnosed with a different developmental disorder, such as specific language impairment (SLI), dyslexia, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), learning disorder (LD), or autism spectrum disorder. This study describes the performance of children diagnosed with APD, SLI, dyslexia, ADHD, and LD to different outcome measurements. The aim of this study was to determine (1) which characteristics of APD overlap with the characteristics of children with SLI, dyslexia, ADHD, LD, or autism spectrum disorder; and (2) if there are characteristics that distinguish children diagnosed with APD from children diagnosed with other developmental disorders.
A systematic review. Six electronic databases (Pubmed, CINAHL, Eric, PsychINFO, Communication & Mass Media Complete, and EMBASE) were searched to find peer-reviewed studies from 1954 to May 2015. The authors included studies reporting behaviors and performance of children with (suspected) APD and children diagnosed with a different developmental disorder (SLI, Dyslexia, ADHD, and LD). Two researchers identified and screened the studies independently. Methodological quality of the included studies was assessed with the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association's levels-of-evidence scheme.
In total, 13 studies of which the methodological quality was moderate were included in this systematic review. In five studies, the performance of children diagnosed with APD was compared with the performance of children diagnosed with SLI: in two with children diagnosed with dyslexia, one with children diagnosed with ADHD, and in another one with children diagnosed with LD. Ten of the studies included children who met the criteria for more than one diagnosis. In four studies, there was a comparison made between the performances of children with comorbid disorders. There were no studies found in which the performance of children diagnosed with APD was compared with the performance of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Children diagnosed with APD broadly share the same characteristics as children diagnosed with other developmental disorders, with only minor differences between them. Differences were determined with the auditory and visual Duration Pattern Test, the Children's Auditory Processing Performance Scale questionnaire, and the subtests of the Listening in Spatialized Noise-Sentences test, in which noise is spatially separated from target sentences. However, these differences are not consistent between studies and are not found in comparison to all groups of children with other developmental disorders.
Children diagnosed with APD perform equally to children diagnosed with SLI, dyslexia, ADHD, and LD on tests of intelligence, memory or attention, and language tests. Only small differences between groups were found for sensory and perceptual functioning tasks (auditory and visual). In addition, children diagnosed with dyslexia performed poorer in reading tasks compared with children diagnosed with APD. The result is possibly confounded by poor quality of the research studies and the low quality of the used outcome measures. More research with higher scientific rigor is required to better understand the differences and similarities in children with various neurodevelopmental disorders.
被诊断患有听觉处理障碍（APD）的儿童在听觉功能以及记忆、注意力、语言和阅读任务方面存在困难。然而，目前尚不清楚这些儿童的行为特征是否与其他发育障碍（如特定语言障碍（SLI）、阅读障碍、注意力缺陷多动障碍（ADHD）、学习障碍（LD）或自闭症谱系障碍）儿童的行为特征有区别。本研究描述了被诊断患有 APD、SLI、阅读障碍、ADHD 和 LD 的儿童在不同结果测量中的表现。本研究的目的是确定：（1）APD 的哪些特征与 SLI、阅读障碍、ADHD、LD 或自闭症谱系障碍儿童的特征重叠；（2）是否存在可以区分被诊断患有 APD 的儿童与被诊断患有其他发育障碍的儿童的特征。
系统综述。六个电子数据库（PubMed、CINAHL、Eric、PsychINFO、Communication & Mass Media Complete 和 EMBASE）被搜索，以找到 1954 年至 2015 年 5 月的同行评审研究。作者纳入了报告患有（疑似）APD 和其他发育障碍（SLI、阅读障碍、ADHD 和 LD）儿童的行为和表现的研究。两名研究人员独立识别和筛选研究。纳入研究的方法学质量使用美国言语-语言-听力协会的证据水平方案进行评估。
共有 13 项方法学质量中等的研究被纳入本系统综述。在五项研究中，比较了被诊断患有 APD 的儿童与被诊断患有 SLI 的儿童的表现：两项研究与被诊断患有阅读障碍的儿童进行了比较，一项研究与被诊断患有 ADHD 的儿童进行了比较，另一项研究与被诊断患有 LD 的儿童进行了比较。其中 10 项研究纳入了符合多种诊断标准的儿童。在四项研究中，对患有共病障碍的儿童的表现进行了比较。未发现将被诊断患有 APD 的儿童的表现与被诊断患有自闭症谱系障碍的儿童的表现进行比较的研究。被诊断患有 APD 的儿童与其他发育障碍儿童具有相同的特征，仅在细微差异方面存在差异。差异是通过听觉和视觉持续时间模式测试、儿童听觉处理表现量表问卷以及在存在噪声与目标句子分离的空间化噪声句子测试中的听力测试确定的。然而，这些差异在研究之间并不一致，并且与所有其他发育障碍儿童群体的比较都没有发现。
在智力、记忆或注意力和语言测试中，被诊断患有 APD 的儿童与被诊断患有 SLI、阅读障碍、ADHD 和 LD 的儿童的表现相同。仅在感觉和知觉功能任务（听觉和视觉）中发现了组间的细微差异。此外，与被诊断患有 APD 的儿童相比，被诊断患有阅读障碍的儿童在阅读任务中的表现更差。这一结果可能与研究的质量差和所用结果测量的质量低有关。需要进行更多具有更高科学严谨性的研究，以更好地理解具有各种神经发育障碍的儿童之间的差异和相似之处。
