Measurement of temporal-order judgment in children.
Abnormal auditory temporal processing might be an underlying deficit in language disabilities. The auditory temporal-order threshold, one measure for temporal processing abilities, is defined as the shortest time interval between two acoustic events necessary for a person to be able to identify the correct temporal order. In our study, we examined the reliability of the auditory temporal-order threshold during a one-week period and over a time interval of four months in normally developing children aged 5 to 11 years. The results of our method show that children younger than 7 years have difficulties performing the task successfully. The reliability of the assessment of the temporal-order threshold during a period of one week is only moderate, and its stability over a time interval of four months is low. The results show that auditory-order thresholds in children have to be treated with caution. A high temporal-order threshold does not necessarily predict disabilities in temporal processing.
Institute of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Ludwig-Maximilian University, Munich, Germany. Dagmar.Berwanger@extern.lrz-muenchen.de.
Dagmar
D
Berwanger
Marc
M
Wittmann
Nicole
N
von Steinbüchel
Waldemar
W
von Suchodoletz
D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012684:Sensory Thresholds / Q000502:physiology; D013997:Time Factors; D013998:Time Perception / Q000502:physiology*