Listening in noise training in children with auditory processing disorder: exploring group and individual data

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of auditory training in noise on auditory behaviors and life habits in children with auditory processing disorder.

Methods: Ten children with auditory processing disorder underwent an auditory training program in noise and six children with auditory processing disorder comprised a control group. Before and after training, participants were tested on sentence identification in noise and auditory evoked late latency responses. Participants teachers completed two questionnaires on children’s auditory behaviors and life habits.

Results: Participants were more tolerant to noise as the training sessions progressed. Significant between-group differences were found in P1 and N2 latency measures, independent of measurement time. The observed data trends suggest that some participants improved their performance on the sentence identification task in noise as well as on some electrophysiological parameters. No significant differences in questionnaire scores were found between groups or measurement times. However, one questionnaire showed significant between-group differences for certain questions.

Conclusions: Listening in noise can improve with training for children with auditory processing disorder. However, this training program might be beneficial for some, but not all, children with auditory processing disorder. More data are needed to verify individual data trends.

Implication for rehabilitation

• A structured program was developed to improve the ability of children with auditory processing disorder to listen in noise.

• Intervention can be beneficial for improving auditory behaviors in some children with auditory processing disorder.

• A limited number of questions on children’s auditory behaviors asked to teachers appears to be more sensitive to intervention-related improvement compared to questions on life habits.

Keywords:

• Auditory processing disorder
• auditory training
• children
• listening
• noise

Note

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the participants, parents, teachers, professionals, and school principals for their collaboration. They are grateful to Emma Berthou, Cynthia Côté-Dupont, Caroline Gilbert, Simon Hétu, Lina Huynh, Geneviève Ingels-Fortier, Alex Lachapelle, Fanny Lafontaine-Jacob, Justine Ratelle, Fred Sasseville-Painchaud, Jenny Turcotte, and Catherine Vincent for their assistance. Special thanks go to Raouf Mlaiki for his help with the software and to Margaret McKyes for manuscript revision.

Some of the results of this study were presented at the following events: scientific talks at the MURDR Reading Group, Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Sciences, Sydney, Australia, 2010; Faculty of Health Sciences, Université d’Ottawa, Canada, 2011; Ministry of Education, Recreation and Sports of Québec, Canada, 2012; Symposium on auditory processing disorder in children, Canadian Academy of Audiology, Toronto, Ontario, 2012; Symposium on auditory processing disorder, Lyon, France, 2012; Congress of the American Academy of Audiology, Boston, USA, 2012; International Symposium on rehabilitation related to auditory language disorders, Montreal, Canada, 2013; Congress of the American Academy of Audiology, Florida, USA, 2014; Acoustic Week in Canada 2016, Vancouver, Canada, 2016; and International Conference in Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, Montréal, Canada, 2016.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 All test items have been adapted from the original French.