[Significance of auditory processing deficits for the pathogenesis of reading and spelling disorders].
OBJECTIVE
It has been claimed that children with dyslexia show auditory processing deficits and a training of auditory perception is recommended as a therapy. this study addresses the question whether a causal connection between auditory perception and dyslexia can be proven empirically.


METHODS
27 dyslexic children with average intelligence and normal hearing and 31 controls were examined. The auditory perception ability was judged with non-linguistic (pitch, tone duration, sound discrimination tasks) and verbal (speech in noise, compressed speech) tasks. In addition auditory short-term memory, nonverbal IQ, spelling and language ability were assessed.


RESULTS
Group differences were found in tone processing tasks, but not in sound discrimination or auditory verbal tasks. Despite significant main effects in tone processing tasks the individual values of the dyslexic children lay predominantly in the range of the controls. In addition, there was no correlation between tone processing and spelling ability.


CONCLUSIONS
Dyslexic children do not show remarkable deficits in verbal auditory processing. Auditory low level deficits can only be observed within a small subgroup. There is no evidence for central auditory dysfunction as a cause of dyslexia. The relevance of auditory processing training for treatment programmes for dyslexia should be questioned.
Institut für Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie und Psychotherapie, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Abteilung für Entwicklungsfragen Waltherstr. 23, D-80337 München. Suchodoletz@lrz.uni-muenchen.de
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D000381:Agraphia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D001288:Attention; D001308:Auditory Perceptual Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D002648:Child; D015897:Comorbidity; D004410:Dyslexia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006320:Hearing Tests; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D010898:Pitch Perception; D012307:Risk Factors; D013067:Speech Perception; D014706:Verbal Learning