الفهرس 
MATURATION OF AUDITORY PROCESSING ABILITIESOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
CONCLUSIONS
1- Low verbal CAPD test battery was developed and standardized on Egyptian children as young as two years and three months of age.
2- The newly developed test battery showed good reliability indices in terms of test-retest reliability and internal consistency.
3- In general, all tested auditory abilities improved with age.
4- The rate of increase of auditory working memory for age is one word per year for children aged two to five years.
5- The rate of increase of selective auditory attention ability is 2 dB towards negative SNR per year for children aged two to five years.
6- Auditory temporal sequencing tasks require more training. Auditory pitch sequencing is more difficult than auditory duration sequencing.
RECOMMENDATIONS
1- Application of the newly developed test battery on larger study sample.
2- Application of the newly developed test battery in clinical practice; specifically, young children with suspected APD and those with limited language abilities.
3- Correlation between the developed test battery and electrophysiological measures.
SUMMARY
Auditory processing, cognitive and language development constitute the major pillars for communication and learning. This calls for a tool to track developmental trajectories of Auditory processing abilities in preschool normally developing children. Assessment of such young age group is challenged by task appropriateness, linguistic and attentional factors.
The first objective of the current study was to develop material for trial auditory processing of preschoolers. Due to variability of children language, verbal material was chosen with the aid of an expert phoniatrician.
The first pilot study was conducted on 18 preschool children from different socioeconomic levels and resulted in further material refinement. Also, some displayed pictures were replaced by pictures with less animated features. Finally, inclusion criteria of study sample were restricted to Egyptian children attending national daycare nurseries with Arabic as first tongue.
The newly developed test battery was constructed as an attractive engaging game on a tablet device. Also, adaptive examination methodology by developing adaptive speech in noise test. All recorded material was calibrated by equalizing to RMS of target warble tones in calibration process. Second pilot study was done to ensure function monotonicity and comparable item difficulty in noise. The newly developed battery include: Low-verbal Auditory working memory test (monosyllabic and bisyllabic words), Auditory Directives test, temporal processing tests (Musical notes test, Short and long sounds test) and nSRT test.
The newly developed test Battery was applied on 90 normally developing children from 2.3 years to nearly five years of age. In general, all tests showed good internal consistency and good test-retest reliability.
Low-verbal Auditory working memory test was the first test to be performed to avoid confusion by visual memory. Children median scores increased by 1 correct word for each 1 year increase in age. There was a tendency of older children scores to cluster at higher levels. These differences were statistically significant.
In Auditory Directives test, maturational effect was noted as older children could excute more complex orders compared to younger children. There was also a tendency of older children scores to cluster at higher levels. These differences were statistically significant. This denotes increased efficiency of interhemispheric transfer of auditory information.
In Musical notes test, a portion of the study sample could not perform the tasks (40%). However, the older children could order two piano notes compared to younger children. There was also a tendency of older children scores to cluster at higher levels. These differences were statistically significant. In Short and long sounds test, a portion of the study sample could not perform the tasks (50%). However, they could hum the sounds. The older children could order two sounds compared to younger children. There was also a tendency of older children scores to cluster at higher levels. These differences were statistically significant. Taken together, this refers to maturation of temporal processing abilities in young children. Finally, it was noted that Temporal processing tests had the highest need for training compared to the rest of the test battery.
In nSRT test, the mean scores decreased steadily by -2 dB in SNR for each 1-year increase in age. There was also a tendency of older children scores to cluster at poorer SNRs. These differences were statistically significant. This denotes maturation of selective auditory attention ability.
This novel work documented age maturation effects for all abilities in preschool children. On the other hand, test results were not correlated with language. Also, socioeconomic level did not affect childrens’ scores. The newly developed test battery showed good reliability indices.