Development and Standardization of Low-Verbal Materials for Assessment of Central Auditory Disorder in Arabic Language

Abstract

Auditory processing, cognitive and language development constitute the major pillars for communication and learning. This calls for a tool to track developmental trajectories of Auditory processing abilities in preschool normally developing children. Assessment of such young age group is challenged by task appropriateness, linguistic and attentional factors. The first objective of the current study was to develop material for trial auditory processing of preschoolers. Due to variability of children language, verbal material was chosen with the aid of an expert phoniatrician. The first pilot study was conducted on 18 preschool children from different socioeconomic levels and resulted in further material refinement. Also, some displayed pictures were replaced by pictures with less animated features. Finally, inclusion criteria of study sample were restricted to Egyptian children attending national daycare nurseries with Arabic as first tongue. The newly developed test battery was constructed as an attractive engaging game on a tablet device. Also, adaptive examination methodology by developing adaptive speech in noise test. All recorded material was calibrated by equalizing to RMS of target warble tones in calibration process. Second pilot study was done to ensure function monotonicity and comparable item difficulty in noise. The newly developed battery include: Low-verbal Auditory working memory test (monosyllabic and bisyllabic words), Auditory Directives test, temporal processing tests (Musical notes test, Short and long sounds test) and nSRT test.