Noise is the single most omnipresent noxious contaminant in the American environment, yet little attention has been paid to its dangers and relatively small amounts of money spent to control it. Compares the effects and management of hearing impairment due to noise with those resulting from other causes. (Editor)

Seventy-three children (ages 4-18) with hearing impairments were administered the Auditory Perception of Alphabet Letters test. Results indicated excellent reliability, and high intercorrelations with both open-set and closed-set auditory tests. The study concludes that spoken names of alphabet letters can be employed as an effective auditory…

A double-blind, placebo-controlled study examined effects of methylphenidate (Ritalin) on auditory processing in 32 children with both attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and central auditory processing (CAP) disorder. Analyses revealed that Ritalin did not have a significant effect on any of the central auditory processing measures, although…

Changes in selection criteria have meant that children are being provided with cochlear implants (CI) at increasingly younger ages. However, there is a paucity of measures that are appropriate for testing complex listening skills--most tests are too cognitively complex for such young children. The Common Objects Token (COT) Test was developed as a…

RECENT LINGUISTIC RESEARCH SHOWS THAT THE SPEECH PATTERNS OF SOUTHERN NEGROES CONSTITUTE A LEGITIMATE DIALECT OF ENGLISH WITH PHONOLOGICAL AND GRAMMATICAL RULES SOMEWHAT DIFFERENT FROM GENERAL AMERICAN ENGLISH (GAE). AN EXPERIMENT WAS DESIGNED TO DETERMINE WHETHER THOSE ASPECTS OF THE NEGRO DIALECT WHICH SET IT APART FROM OTHER ENGLISH DIALECTS…

This study examined the relationship between initial and final consonants on two equivalent forms of the Wepman Auditory Discrimination Test (WADT). Subjects were 128 first grade, English-speaking, Negro, disadvantaged children. The two WADT forms each contained 40 different word-pairs. Thirteen word-pairs differed in initial consonant (IPT); 13…

An audiometric screening survey was conducted on a severely and profoundly mentally retarded population using noise-makers and pure tone audiometry. Of those tested with noise-makers, 83% gave an identifiable response to sound, 7% did not respond, and 10% were considered difficult-to-test. By contrast, 4% passed, 2% failed, and 94% were…

In order to study effectiveness of low-frequency amplification and filtered-speech testing for preschool deaf children, an experimental design permitting the teacher to speak simultaneously through two different amplifying systems, a low-frequency auditory training unit (Suvag I) and a conventional auditory training unit (Warren T-2), was used…

This study examined the influence of stimulus context and audibility on sentence recognition in 60 normal-hearing children, 24 hearing-impaired children, and 20 normal-hearing adults. For both semantically correct and semantically anomalous sentences, there was a systematic age-related shift in the performance-intensity functions. Data from the…

This study examined practice effects and list differences on a test of central auditory processing, the Synthetic Sentence Identification (SSI) test, with an ipsilateral competing message in 30 young and 20 elderly participants. Results indicated older adults required substantially more practice. Significant list differences were also found.…

Deficits in temporal resolution and/or the precedence effect may underlie part of the speech understanding difficulties experienced by older listeners in degraded acoustic environments. In a previous investigation, R. Roberts and J. Lister (2004) identified a positive correlation between measures of temporal resolution and the precedence effect,…

This review examines the literature on auditory skills for evidence regarding the relationship of the sound blending skill and reading achievement. Factors that might affect this relationship are discussed. (Author/MV)

This paper provides an overview of interdisciplinary assessment procedures and criteria for diagnosis of central auditory processing (CAP) disorders. It describes use of a CAP test battery consisting of four measures with results integrated with a comprehensive speech-language pathology assessment. Practical strategies for classroom utilization…