Assessment of Central Auditory Processing Impairment and Cognitive Profiles in Children with Specific Learning Disabilities

Mekki, Soha Abdelraouf; ELsafy, Eman Hassan; Ghannam, Wafaa Hosney; Gad, Nahla Hassan

doi:10.21608/ejhm.2022.236096

Assessment of Central Auditory Processing Impairment and Cognitive Profiles in Children with Specific Learning Disabilities

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

10.21608/ejhm.2022.236096

Abstract

Background: Specific learning disabilities (SLDs) are a significant factor in children's academic underachievement. Around 46% of SLDs children have comorbid auditory processing disorder (APD). Cognitive functions are the ability to think and plan. Consequently, learning and academic progress are significantly affected by these disabilities.
Objective: Our study sought to evaluate whether children with SLDs have both central auditory processing (CAP) and cognitive abnormalities.
Patients and methods: A case-control study was conducted on 36 children from different schools of Zagazig city, Alsharquia government, Egypt, allocated into 2 groups, 18 with SLDs and academic underachievement (study group I) and 18 without SLDs (control group II). Medical history, otological evaluation, basic audiological examination, central screening tests (speech in noise (SPIN), dichotic digit (DDT), and pitch pattern sequence (PPS)), test for temporal resolution (Gaps in noise, (GIN)), IQ, and visuomotor ability evaluation were used to collect data.
Results: The SLDs group had lower DDT, PPS, total score and percent of GIN test versus the control groups. At the same time, the approximate threshold of GIN test in the SLDs group was significantly greater relative to the normal group. Regarding Bender-Gestalt test (BGT) test, there was highly statically significant increase scores on copy and recall phases among control group. A significant positive relationship was detected between the BGT copy and recall phases and PPS on both sides.
Conclusion: Our findings endorsed our hypothesis that most children with SLDs had subnormal scores on CAP abilities and cognitive function. The most severely affected CAP were temporal resolution and temporal ordering. Most SLDs children had visuomotor affection.

Keywords