Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) in Children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) - Abstract
Abstract
Aim: The aim of our study was to analyze the effects of auditory processing disorder in children suffering from DLD using dichotic tests. The intent of this study was to assess
language development using Czech-language dichotic word tests and possible auditory processing disorder (APD) in children with developmental language disorder (DLD), compared
with normal children.
Method: In our tests, children in one group were dichotically presented with two different two-syllable words (tests 1, 2 and 3). The group given the two-word tests had 208
children (168 boys and 40 girls) of pre-school children (ages 6 to 7) with DLD. Two other groups were drawn from the same 208 children and tested at a larger age. The children
in these groups were presented with more complex words dichotically (test 10 and 11). The group given test 10 had 113 children (88 boys and 25 girls) and the group given test
11 had 37 children (28 boys and 9 girls) of school age (ages 7 to 8), all of whom had both DLD and various learning disabilities. We compared the results from the experimental
groups with control groups of children with normal language development.
Results: The average rates of success on tests 1, 2 and 3 for the 208 children with DLD aged 6 to 7 years were as follows: test 1: 53.3%, test 2: 59.8%, test 3: 58.2%. The
average rates of success for the children in the control group were: test 1: 90.8%, test 2: 92.9%, test 3: 91.6%. The average success rates were 52.5% on test 10 for the 113 children
aged 7 to 8 (with DLD and learning disabilities) and was 57.3% on test 11 for the second group of 37 similar children. The average success rates of the control groups on test 10
and 11 were 92.1% and 87.5%, respectively. For both age groups of impaired children, there were highly significant differences with the average success rates of the control group
(p<0.001) - by use of the statistical paired t-test.
Conclusions: Our results confirmed our hypothesis about children with DLD and APD: their performance improved significantly as a function of age.