MacCAD, a new Macintosh‐based Hypercard program for central auditory diagnostics: Description and preliminary findings

Abstract

Although most components of the classical auditory system lie between the periphery and association cortex, our information about auditory disorders is limited primarily to those extremes. This ignorance is due to the fact that until recently, appropriately sensitive methodologies, both in terms of test design as well as modes for noninvasive brain monitoring, have not been readily available in the clinic. MacCAD is an attempt to address the first of these issues; a companion paper will report on results combining MacCAD with noninvasive physiological testing [repeated evoked potentials (REPs)]. MacCAD brings features of basic‐research test design into the clinic, including: ease of use by both tester and client, monaural and dichotic modes for a variety of speech and nonspeech sounds, expansion capability for additional sounds, graduated difficulty for each sound set, client control of test pacing, automatic stimulus/response recording, trial‐by‐trial feedback, and analysis options including trial‐by‐trial monitoring, confusion matrices, and percent correct for individual sounds and complete sets. Initial field testing with populations predicted to have damage between periphery and language cortex, including adults with central auditory dysfunction, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, and presbyacusis, indicates that MacCAD's unique features may render it sensitive to individual characteristics which, when interpreted in the context of results on other tests such as evoked potentials, may be indicative of auditory dysfunctions which are invisible to standard audiological testing. [Work supported in part by Apple Computer, Inc., Community Affairs, with the American Speech‐Language‐Hearing Foundation.]