title: Characteristics of Pediatric Performance on a Test Battery Commonly Used in the Diagnosis of Central Auditory Processing Disorder.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Although central auditory processing disorder (CAPD) test battery performance has been examined in adults with neurologic lesions of the central auditory nervous system (CANS), similar data on children being referred for CAPD evaluations are sparse.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This study characterizes CAPD test battery performance in children using tests commonly administered to diagnose the disorder. Specifically, this study describes failure rates for various test combinations, relationships between CAPD tests used in the battery, and the influence of cognitive function on CAPD test performance and CAPD diagnosis. A comparison is also made between the performance of children with CAPD and data from patients with neurologic lesions of the CANS.
  
  
  METHODS
  A retrospective study.
  
  
  METHODS
  Fifty-six pediatric patients were referred for CAPD testing.
  
  
  METHODS
  Participants were administered four CAPD tests, including frequency patterns (FP), low-pass filtered speech (LPFS), dichotic digits (DD), and competing sentences (CS). In addition, they were given the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC). Descriptive analyses examined the failure rates of various test combinations, as well as how often children with CAPD failed certain combinations when compared with adults with CANS lesions. A principal components analysis was performed to examine interrelationships between tests. Correlations and regressions were conducted to determine the relationship between CAPD test performance and the WISC.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Results showed that the FP and LPFS tests were most commonly failed by children with CAPD. Two-test combinations that included one or both of these two tests and excluded DD tended to be failed more often. Including the DD and CS test in a battery benefited specificity. Tests thought to measure interhemispheric transfer tended to be correlated. Compared with adult patients with neurologic lesions, children with CAPD tended to fail LPFS more frequently and DD less frequently. Both groups failed FP with relatively equal frequency.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The two-test combination that showed the highest failure rate for children with CAPD was LPFS-FP. Comparison with adults with CANS lesions, however, suggests that the mechanisms underlying LPFS performance in children need to be better understood. The two-test combination that showed the next highest failure rates among children with CAPD and did not include LPFS was CS-FP. If it is desirable to use a dichotic measure that has a lower linguistic load than CS then DD can be substituted for CS despite the slightly lower failure rate of the DD-FP battery.
authors.affiliation: Division of Communicative Disorders, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY.
authors.forename: Jeffrey
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Weihing
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT.
authors.forename: Linda
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Guenette
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, Washington State University, Spokane, WA.
authors.forename: Gail
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Chermak
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT.
authors.forename: Mallory
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT.
authors.forename: Julianne
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ceruti
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT.
authors.forename: Krista
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Fitzgerald
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT.
authors.forename: Kristin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Geissler
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT.
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gonzalez
authors.affiliation: Division of Communicative Disorders, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY.
authors.forename: Lauren
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Brenneman
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT.
authors.forename: Frank
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Musiek
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D001308:Auditory Perceptual Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D003071:Cognition; D004007:Dichotic Listening Tests; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014888:Wechsler Scales