Performance of typical children in free field auditory temporal tests.
BACKGROUND
auditory temporal processing.


OBJECTIVE
to determine the performance profile of normal hearing children in temporal sequence and order detection and identification tasks in free-field.


METHODS
forty three children with ages raging from 7 to 11 years and 5 months were evaluated in two behavioral tests - frequency patterns test (FPT) and duration patterns test (DPT) - child's version by Auditec. Both tests were applied at 60 dBNA in free-field. Children were requested to provide two types of answers: nonverbal (NV) being murmuring for FPT and manual for DPT, and verbal (V), nomination for TPF and TPD. For both tests (FPT and DPT), ten repetitions of six sequence patterns totalizing 60 stimuli were presented to each child.


RESULTS
the performance on FPT with a non-verbal response was significantly better when compared to V response for all of the subjects. Significant performance improvements with age were observed in VFPT, NVDPT and VDPT. The performance on FPT was better than the performance on PDT. The results of this study showed similar performance on temporal sequence and order detection and identification tasks when compared to other studies conducted with Brazilian population in which these tasks were applied with supra-aural earphones.


CONCLUSIONS
the values obtained for FPT and DPT can be considered the parameter of normal performance for Auditec's child version in free-field for children with ages between 7 to 11 years and 5 month.
Frederigue-Lopes
Natália Barreto
NB
Departamento de Fonoaudiologia, Faculdade de Odontologia de Bauru, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil. natalia@frederigue.com.br
Bevilacqua
Maria Cecilia
MC
Sameshima
Koishi
K
Costa
Orozimbo Alves
OA
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006320:Hearing Tests / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology*