Comparing auditory sustained attention in children with auditory processing disorder and normal children

Auditory processing disorder (APD) is a type of abnormal perceptual processing of auditory information within the central auditory nervous system that could be influenced by cognitive factors, such as attention. Attention is one of most important cognitive functions in the development of learning in children, so it is important to recognize and evaluate a variety of attention deficits in children with auditory processing disorder with a reliable test. The aim of this study was to compare the auditory sustained attention in children with auditory processing disorder and normal children with Test of Everyday Attention for children.

This cross-sectional study was performed on 45 students aged 7-11 years, 23 normal children (mean age, 9.88, SD; 1.5) and 22 children with a diagnosed APD (mean age, 9.32, SD; 1.2). Remarkably, test of Everyday Attention for children with five subtest (Score, Score Dual Task, Code Transmission, Sky Search Dual Task, Walk, Don’t Walk) in sustained attention domain was performed in the both groups. The mean scores of the two groups were compared in each of the sub-tests.

The results of Mann-Whitney U test indicated that there were significant difference in two groups in all of the subtests (Score, Score dual task, Code Transmission, Sky Search dual task, Walk, Don’t Walk) (P<0.001).

The results showed that children with auditory processing disorders were significantly worse than their normal peers in all subtests of auditory sustained attention domain.