Development of auditory sensitivity in children who stutter and fluent children.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to establish whether there are any differential changes in auditory sensitivity over ages in a variety of peripheral and central auditory tasks between participants who stutter and participants who do not stutter.


METHODS
The auditory sensitivity of 37 participants who stutter and 44 participants who do not stutter, ages between 8 and 19 yr, assigned to three age categories, were obtained in five listening conditions: Pure tone threshold, simultaneous masking, backward masking, notched backward masking, and simple dichotic (simultaneous) masking.


RESULTS
Across all listening conditions and both talker groups, thresholds decreased over age. The thresholds of participants who do not stutter decreased for simultaneous, backward, and notched backward masking conditions over the 8- to 19-year age range. Analysis of each condition only showed significant improvement over age groups for backward masking for the participants who stutter.


CONCLUSIONS
These results indicate that auditory sensitivity for sounds in noise continues to develop through to teenage, and a different pattern of auditory development exists for the participants who stutter compared with participants who do not stutter.
Howell
Peter
P
Department of Psychology, University College London, London, England. p.howell@ucl.ac.uk
Williams
Sheila M
SM
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D003201:Computers; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D012044:Regression Analysis; D013342:Stuttering / Q000503:physiopathology*