AudBility: an online program for central auditory processing screening in school-aged children from 6 to 8 years old.
Nádia Giulian de Carvalho, Maria Isabel Ramos do Amaral, Maria Francisca Colella-Santos
PMID 37646741WHAT IT FOUND
Screening scores on this auditory processing tool vary by age, gender, and ear side, so pass/fail cutoffs must be adjusted for these factors.
Correlations with diagnostic tests were stronger in 6-7 year olds than 8 year olds. The temporal ordering of duration task was too difficult for this age group.
Key findings
01Performance on auditory screening tasks was significantly influenced by age, with 8-year-olds scoring higher than 6-year-olds on most tasks, and by gender and ear side in specific dichotic listening tasks.
02Screening tasks correlated significantly with diagnostic tests for 6-7 year olds across multiple domains, but only for dichotic digits and temporal ordering frequency in 8-year-olds.
03The temporal ordering of duration task caused difficulty for children aged 6 to 8, leading to high variability and low cutoff scores, suggesting it should be excluded from screening protocols for this age group.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study used a convenience sample from a single public school, limiting generalizability. School performance was judged by teacher/parent reports and case history without formal cognitive or language testing. The temporal ordering of duration diagnostic test was not performed in Stage 2, so its screening task could not be validated against a gold standard. Cutoff points were derived from a small number of children with normal diagnostic results (55 children).
Declared interests
No conflicts of interest or funding sources were explicitly declared in the provided text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that a child's poor performance on the temporal ordering of duration task indicates a processing disorder; the study found this task was too difficult for the 6-8 age group and recommends excluding it from screening protocols for these children.