Auditory processing abilities in school-aged children in the region of Vojvodina

Abstract

Auditory processing is the process of decoding an auditory stimulus along the hearing pathways in the central nervous system. Children with auditory processing difficulties face challenges in the transmission, processing, organisation, and use of auditory information. This affects their spoken language, reading abilities, writing acquisition, and academic achievements. The aim of this study was to assess the auditory processing abilities of school-aged children from the region of Vojvodina using the Battery test for Auditory Processing Disorders PSP1 (Heđever, 2017). This study also aimed to examine the influence of age, gender, and school success on auditory processing abilities in school-aged children. The study sample consisted of 162 children between the ages of 6.7 and 11.6 years. The PSP-1 test battery consists of 4 subtests: filtered words test, speech-in-noise test, dichotic word test, and dichotic sentence test. Results have shown that 8 (4.94%) respondents on the PSP1 test achieved below average results, indicating auditory processing difficulties. Among these respondents, two were female (1.24%) and six were male (3.70%). Four respondents (2.48%) belonged to the second age group (from 7.7 to 8.6 years) and two respondents (1.24%) belonged to the first (from 6.7 to 7.6 years) and the fourth age group (from 9.7 to 10.6 years) each. Statistically significant differences were observed in the auditory processing abilities of the respondents in relation to their age (p < 0.001) and gender (p < 0.05). Girls had significantly better results on the total score of the PSP1 test, as well as in two subtests: the filtered words test and the dichotic word test. In addition, there was a statistically significant correlation between auditory processing abilities and school success.