Masking Level Difference in schoolchildren: environmental analysis.

Quemile Pribs Martins,Vivian Amaral Faccin,Daniela Gil,Michele Vargas Garcia,Mirtes Brückmann

doi:10.1590/2317-1782/20182017048

Abstract

To investigate the auditory ability of selective attention in the school population and to identify reference values to the age group from seven to ten years old through the Masking Level Difference Test, and to identify if the parents' schooling, as well as the family income can influence the test results. Thirty-one schoolchildren who match the eligibility criteria attended the study, being 20 female and 11 male. An anamnesis was conducted to question the familiar income and the schooling of the children´s parents; we also performed visual inspection of the External Acoustic Meatus, Pure Tone Audiometry, Speech Audiometry, Acoustic Immittance Measures, Dichotic Digits Test and Masking Level Difference test. The mean age of the individuals was 8.67 years. There were no observed differences between genders and between the evaluated ages in the MLD performance. There was no relation between the parents' schooling and the average monthly income with the performance of the children in MLD Test. The MLD mean was 7.65 dB and standard deviation of 2.51 dB. The Masking Level Difference in schoolchildren from seven to ten years old is 7.65 dB and is independent of the gender, parents' schooling and the average monthly income of the schoolchild.

Highlights

Listening is not enough to understand the sound message
The adequate screening of the hearing abilities development and the importance of the Central Auditory Processing (CAP) for the learning development, the purpose of this study is to investigate the selective attention auditory ability in the school population and to identify reference values for the age group of seven to ten years through the Masking Level Difference (MLD) test
Therein it is possible to observe that the coefficient of variation (CV) is less than 50% in these variables, indicating homogeneity in the sample

Summary

Introduction

Central Auditory Processing (CAP) refers to all the processes and auditory mechanisms which are responsible for the sound localization and lateralization phenomena, auditory discrimination, recognition of temporal aspects of hearing (resolution, masking, integration and ordering), auditory performance in the face of competitive and degraded acoustic signals. These processes and mechanisms are evaluated through tests that use both verbal and non-verbal stimuli[2]. Individuals with CAP disorder may have difficulty to understand oral language, to follow verbal instructions correctly, to understanding fast or fractional language, and/or identify the source of sound, impairments that worsen in noisy and reverberant environments. Problems to learn a foreign language, to follow sequential instructions and disorders related to musical perception can be observed[3]

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