This study used the modality shift experiment, a relatively simple reaction time measure to visual and auditory stimuli, to examine attentional shifting within and across modalities in 33 children and 42 adults with high-functioning autism as compared to matched numbers of age- and ability-matched typical controls. An exaggerated "modality shift…

This study explored the developmental trends and phonetic category formation in bilingual children and adults. Participants included 30 fluent Spanish-English bilingual children, aged 8-11, and bilingual adults, aged 18-40. All completed gating tasks that incorporated code-mixed Spanish-English stimuli. There were significant differences in…

The nature of word recognition difficulties in developmental dyslexia is still a topic of controversy. We investigated the contribution of phonological processing deficits and uncertainty to the word recognition difficulties of dyslexic children by mathematical diffusion modeling of visual and auditory lexical decision data. The first study showed…

Purpose: To consider whether auditory processing disorder (APD) is truly a distinct clinical entity or whether auditory problems are more appropriately viewed as a processing deficit that may occur with various developmental disorders. Method: Theoretical and clinical factors associated with APD are critically evaluated. Results: There are…

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to provide information that will assist readers in understanding and interpreting research literature on the role of auditory processing in communication disorders. Method: A narrative review was used to summarize and synthesize the literature on auditory processing deficits in children with auditory…

The aim of this study was to examine the influence of musical expertise in 9-year-old children on passive (as reflected by MMN) and active (as reflected by discrimination accuracy) processing of speech sounds. Musician and nonmusician children were presented with a sequence of syllables that included standards and deviants in vowel frequency,…

This investigation aimed to determine if children with ASD are impaired in their ability to switch attention between different tasks, and whether performance is further impaired when required to switch across two separate modalities (visual and auditory). Eighteen children with ASD (9-13 years old) were compared with 18 typically-developing…

To assess whether there are qualitatively deviant characteristics in the early vocalizations of children with Rett syndrome, we had 400 native Austrian-German speakers listen to audio recordings of vocalizations from typically developing girls and girls with Rett syndrome. The audio recordings were rated as (a) inconspicuous, (b) conspicuous or…

Children hear new words from many different talkers; to learn words most efficiently, they should be able to represent them independently of talker-specific pronunciation detail. However, do children know what the component sounds of words should be, and can they use that knowledge to deal with different talkers' phonetic realizations? Experiment…

We designed a working memory (WM) training programme in game framework for mild intellectually disabled students. Twenty-four students participated as test and control groups. The auditory and visual-spatial WM were assessed by primary test, which included computerised Wechsler numerical forward and backward sub-tests and secondary tests, which…

Background: Research on retelling ability and cognition is limited in children with cerebral palsy (CP) and speech impairment. Aims: To explore the impact of expressive and receptive language, narrative discourse dimensions (Narrative Assessment Profile measures), auditory and visual memory, theory of mind (ToM) and non-verbal cognition on the…

The Auditory Behavior Questionnaire (ABQ) evaluates abnormal behavioral responses to auditory stimulation in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This study reports preliminary reliability, construct validity and standardization of the ABQ. Parents of children with ASD aged 7-21 years (n = 165) completed the ABQ on-line. Cronbach's alpha…

Purpose: To investigate the clinical utility of the Children's Auditory Processing Performance Scale (CHAPPS; Smoski, Brunt, & Tannahill, 1992) to evaluate listening ability in 12-year-old children referred for auditory processing assessment. Method: This was a prospective case control study of 97 children (age range = 11;4 [years;months] to…

Purpose: To understand the components of auditory learning in typically developing children by assessing generalization across stimuli, across modalities (i.e., hearing, vision), and to higher level language tasks. Method: Eighty-six 8- to 10-year-old typically developing children were quasi-randomly assigned to 4 groups. Three of the groups…

Musical melodies are recognized on the basis of pitch and temporal relations between consecutive tones. Although some previous evidence (e.g., Saffran & Griepentrog, 2001) points to an absolute-to-relative developmental shift in listeners' perception of pitch, other evidence (e.g., Plantinga & Trainor, 2005; Schellenberg & Trehub,…