The SCAN-C in testing for auditory processing disorder in a sample of British children.
The SCAN-C is a test for auditory processing disorders in children developed in the USA. There are concerns that the SCAN-C may over-diagnose auditory processing disorders in UK children. There are also questions concerning the impact of language level and interpretation of SCAN-C results. SCAN-C results from 99 Oxfordshire school children aged 6 to 10 were compared to US-based normative data. Across all age bands, the UK sample scored significantly worse on two subtests: the filtered words (FW) and auditory figure-ground (AFG) sections as well as on the composite score. Differences in performance were largely due to accent effects. Applying US norms to UK children's performance results in a high rate of over-identification of listening difficulties. However, we show that US norms can be used provided SCAN-C scores for children in the UK are adjusted by adding a constant. Using factor analysis, SCAN-C subtests mapped onto two factors; FW and AFG onto a 'monaural low-redundancy degradation' factor, and CW and CS onto a 'binaural separation/competition' factor. Implications for use of the SCAN-C with UK children are discussed.
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, UK. piers.dawes@psy.ox.ac.uk
Piers
P
Dawes
Dorothy V M
DV
Bishop
D001308:Auditory Perceptual Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D002648:Child; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D005260:Female; D006320:Hearing Tests; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000453:epidemiology; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology