الفهرس 
Neurobiology of the Central Auditory Nervous SystemOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
The need for developing norms for dichotic listening tests is crucial for the pediatric population. This is due to maturation of the auditory system in children. The availability of age-specific normative data enables clinicians to monitor a child’s performance over time, which help in making decisions about whether a child’s auditory system is developing normally or otherwise. Also, it determines whether poor performance is related to a delay of maturity or a disorder of the auditory processing system (Keith 2000; Jerger & Musiek, 2000; Keith & Anderson 2007).
As the normative data of the Arabic dichotic digits and dichotic rhyme tests are not yet established in pediatric population, the present study is designed to standardize these two dichotic tests in normal Arabic pediatric population. Accordingly it can be applied as a tool for diagnosing binaural integration disorder in children with auditory processing deficit and language learning problems.
Sixty school children of both genders were examined in this study. Their age ranged from six to twelve years. They were classified into 3 age subgroups: Subgroup I: (6-8) years, Subgroup II: (>8-10) years, and Subgroup III: (>10-12) years. All children had normal peripheral hearing, normal middle ear function, and normal intelligence. All children were submitted to full history taking, Otological examination, basic audiological evaluation, psychometric evaluation, dichotic digits and dichotic rhyme tests.
The study revealed the normative values for Arabic dichotic digits and dichotic rhyme tests in the three age subgroups, and the results showed that scores of Dichotic Digits test version I and version II increase significantly with age due to the maturation of the central auditory system. Scores of Version I was better than Version II, though the difference between both Versions’ scores was not statistically significant. The right ear scores were higher than the left ear scores forming Right ear advantage (REA) in all age subgroups. The REA was more pronounced in Version II than Version I and it decreases as a function of age. Our recommendations is to start with Version I as a training procedure & then to rely on Version II in central auditory assessment (since it is considered more challenging to the auditory system).
Dichotic Rhyme test (DRT) results showed no significant improvement in scores with increasing age. REA was pronounced and it was relatively constant in all age subgroups. There was no difference between using either list I or list II on DRT scores. There was no significant effect of gender, IQ, and level of parent’s education on both dichotic digit and dichotic rhyme tests results.
It’s recommended to use dichotic digits and dichotic rhyme tests to diagnose children with central auditory processing disorder and learning disabilities.