Assistive listening devices for improving auditory processing and school performance of children with auditory processing disorders either affecting or not affecting understanding speech in noise

Recruitment & Eligibility

Status: Recruiting

Sex: All

Target Recruitment: 72

Inclusion Criteria

Participants will be enrolled in the study if.
(1) peripheral hearing loss has been ruled out by pure tone audiometry with air conduction and bone conduction thresholds at 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 6, and 8 kHz (8 kHz air conduction only),
(2) a cognitive deficit has been ruled out by a nonverbal intelligence test using the Wechsler Nonverbal Scale of Ability (WNV) or the Raven's Progressive Matrices (RPM), and/or the CFT 1-R (Culture Fair Intelligence Test - Resivion),
(3) AVSD has been diagnosed by standard phoniatric-audiological and psychological testing with a test battery that includes the following tests:
a.Speech audiometry in quiet and in noise (Oldenburg Sentence Test, OLSA or Oldenburg Children's Sentence Test, OLKISA in noise and Göttingen Children's Speech Intelligibility Test or Freiburg Test for Monosyllables in quiet).
b.Dichotic hearing test according to Uttenweiler or Feldmann, depending on age
c.Mottier test (measures auditory memory, auditory sequencing and identification and differentiation of phonemes by means of chains of meaningless syllables)
d.Repetition of Numbers subtest from the Battery for Assessment in Children - Memory and Learning Skills Test for 6- to 16-year-olds (BASIC-MLT).
e.Verbal Learning and Memory Test (VLMT)
f.Sentence repetition, rhyming, vowel substitution, consonant substitution, and consonant elision subtests from the Potsdam-Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (P-ITPA).
g.Subtests Completing words (auditory completion), Connecting sounds (auditory synthesis) from the Psycholinguistic Developmental Test (PET).
h.Subtests on discrimination of linguistic stimuli (place of articulation, intonation of consonants) and on just perceptible differences of non-linguistic stimuli (tone duration, frequency, sinusoidal amplitude modulation) from the Bochum Screening for Auditory and Linguistic Discrimination (BASD)
i.Auditory discrimination subtest from the BVN/NPS neuropsychological screening test battery,
(4) parents or legal guardians and - if applicable - children have given their written consent to participate in the study.

Exclusion Criteria

Unstable medical conditions or conditions that would place the individual or the examiner at risk for injury, lack of cooperation, or lack of consent of the subject or the parents, teachers or the legal guardian.