The listening in Spatialized Noise test: normative data for children.
The Listening in Spatialized Noise test (LISN) produces a three-dimensional auditory environment under headphones, using only a PC and an audiometer, and was designed to provide an ecologically valid assessment of auditory figure-ground skills in children. The listener is required to indicate the intelligibility level of a story presented at 0 degree azimuth, in the presence of distracter sentences simultaneously presented at either 0 degree or +/- 90 degrees azimuth. Various measures assess the extent to which either spatial, vocal, or spatial and vocal cues combined, increase a listener's ability to comprehend the story, without being affected by differences between participants in variables such as linguistic skills. There was a trend of improved performance with increasing age for 48 normally hearing seven-, eight-, and nine-year-olds, and sixteen adults. Whereas some significant differences were found between adults and children, there were no significant differences in performance between the seven-, eight-, and nine-year-olds on any measure, and no significant gender or practice effects were observed. Future studies on children with suspected auditory processing disorder were considered warranted.
National Acoustic Laboratories, Chatswood, NSW, Australia. Sharon.Cameron@nal.gov.au
Sharon
S
Cameron
Harvey
H
Dillon
Philip
P
Newall
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001302:Audiometry, Speech / Q000379:methods*; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009622:Noise; D012016:Reference Values; D013017:Sound Localization; D013065:Speech Intelligibility; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*