Childhood Listening and Associated Cognitive Difficulties Persist Into Adolescence.
Katsuaki Kojima, Li Lin, Lauren Petley and 7 others
PMID 38764146WHAT IT FOUND
Children with listening difficulties and normal hearing tests showed persistent gaps in caregiver-reported listening, speech-in-noise skills, and cognition compared to typically developing peers through early adolescence.
Maternal education independently predicted listening difficulty severity, even after accounting for cognitive and auditory test scores.
Key findings
01Children with listening difficulties (LiD) scored significantly lower than typically developing peers on all NIH Cognition Toolbox sub-tests and composites across Waves 1 and 2, with no significant improvement over time.
02Maternal education was a significant independent predictor of caregiver-reported listening skills, with children of mothers holding a Bachelor’s degree scoring 3.1 points higher on the ECLiPS than those with a High school diploma.
03LiSN-S Spatial Advantage scores improved significantly from Wave 1 to Wave 2 in both groups, but other auditory processing measures remained stable with persistent group differences.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample size for Wave 3 was notably small (31 participants) due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and attrition at this stage was non-random, potentially introducing bias. The study relied on caregiver reports (ECLiPS) for the primary outcome of 'listening difficulty,' which may be influenced by parental perception and socioeconomic factors rather than being an objective measure of auditory function. The LiD group was defined by an umbrella term (ECLiPS score < 7) and likely included heterogeneous underlying etiologies, so findings may not apply to specific subtypes of auditory processing disorders. Maternal education was used as a proxy for socioeconomic status, which may not capture the full complexity of social determinants affecting child development.
Declared interests
The study was supported by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (N.I.H., Extramural). No specific commercial conflicts of interest were declared in the provided text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the association between maternal education and lower ECLiPS scores as evidence that children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds have worse underlying auditory or cognitive abilities. The study shows maternal education independently predicts parent-reported listening difficulty, which may reflect differences in reporting, access to support, or environmental factors rather than a direct deficit in the child's sensory or cognitive processing.