AudBility: test-retest reliability in typically developing children aged 6 to 7 years.
Tamy Nathalia Tanaka, Nádia Giulian de Carvalho, Maria Francisca Colella-Santos and 1 others
PMID 35894308WHAT IT FOUND
In 29 children aged 6 to 7, the AudBility online hearing-skills screening gave stable results for self-reported hearing difficulties and several listening tasks.
Sound localization, auditory closure, and left-ear figure-ground were less stable.
Key findings
01The questionnaire and six of nine auditory task scores showed agreement between the two applications.
02The questionnaire showed good agreement, and five auditory task scores showed moderate to good agreement.
03Sound localization showed poor to moderate agreement, and auditory closure and figure-ground in the left ear showed poor agreement.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The reliability analysis included only 29 children aged 6 and 7 years, after 154 children were screened. Eight-year-old children were not analysed because their earlier screening was more than two months before the retest. School performance was judged by teacher report and school records, not by a formal validated instrument. The children were not formally screened for cognitive or language conditions, so the sample may have been heterogeneous. Retest performance was better for several tasks, but the study did not test whether this was a practice effect. The same evaluator applied both tests, and factors such as tiredness, motivation, and familiarity with the program were not controlled. The agreement estimates had confidence intervals that left uncertainty, and the study did not assess sensitivity, specificity, or cutoff points for central auditory processing disorder.
Declared interests
The study was funded by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP), process no. 2016/27318-6. The supplied text does not list competing interests.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat AudBility as a fully stable diagnostic test for every auditory skill. The questionnaire and several tasks agreed between the two applications, but sound localization, auditory closure, and left-ear figure-ground did not show stable agreement, and the study did not test whether better retest scores were due to practice.