Mandarin-Speaking Amusics' Online Recognition of Tone and Intonation.

PURPOSE: Congenital amusia is a neurogenetic disorder of musical pitch processing. Its linguistic consequences have been examined separately for speech intonations and lexical tones. However, in a tonal language such as Chinese, the processing of intonations and lexical tones interacts with each other during online speech perception. Whether and how the musical pitch disorder might affect linguistic pitch processing during online speech perception remains unknown. METHOD: We investigated this question with intonation (question vs. statement) and lexical tone (rising Tone 2 vs. falling Tone 4) identification tasks using the same set of sentences, comparing behavioral and event-related potential measurements between Mandarin-speaking amusics and matched controls. We specifically focused on the amusics without behavioral lexical tone deficits (the majority, i.e., pure amusics). RESULTS: Results showed that, despite relative to normal performance when tested in word lexical tone test, pure amusics demonstrated inferior recognition than controls during sentence tone and intonation identification. Compared to controls, pure amusics had larger N400 amplitudes in question stimuli during tone task and smaller P600 amplitudes in intonation task. CONCLUSION: These data indicate that musical pitch disorder affects both tone and intonation processing during sentence processing even for pure amusics, whose lexical tone processing was intact when tested with words.

Toward Sound Localization Testing in Virtual Reality to Aid in the Screening of Auditory Processing Disorders.

Sound localization testing is key for comprehensive hearing evaluations, particularly in cases of suspected auditory processing disorders. However, sound localization is not commonly assessed in clinical practice, likely due to the complexity and size of conventional measurement systems, which require semicircular loudspeaker arrays in large and acoustically treated rooms. To address this issue, we investigated the feasibility of testing sound localization in virtual reality (VR). Previous research has shown that virtualization can lead to an increase in localization blur. To measure these effects, we conducted a study with a group of normal-hearing adults, comparing sound localization performance in different augmented reality and VR scenarios. We started with a conventional loudspeaker-based measurement setup and gradually moved to a virtual audiovisual environment, testing sound localization in each scenario using a within-participant design. The loudspeaker-based experiment yielded results comparable to those reported in the literature, and the results of the virtual localization test provided new insights into localization performance in state-of-the-art VR environments. By comparing localization performance between the loudspeaker-based and virtual conditions, we were able to estimate the increase in localization blur induced by virtualization relative to a conventional test setup. Notably, our study provides the first proxy normative cutoff values for sound localization testing in VR. As an outlook, we discuss the potential of a VR-based sound localization test as a suitable, accessible, and portable alternative to conventional setups and how it could serve as a time- and resource-saving prescreening tool to avoid unnecessarily extensive and complex laboratory testing.

Focal Brain Lesions Causing Acquired Amusia Map to a Common Brain Network.

Music is a universal human attribute. The study of amusia, a neurologic music processing deficit, has increasingly elaborated our view on the neural organization of the musical brain. However, lesions causing amusia occur in multiple brain locations and often also cause aphasia, leaving the distinct neural networks for amusia unclear. Here, we utilized lesion network mapping to identify these networks. A systematic literature search was carried out to identify all published case reports of lesion-induced amusia. The reproducibility and specificity of the identified amusia network were then tested in an independent prospective cohort of 97 stroke patients (46 female and 51 male) with repeated structural brain imaging, specifically assessed for both music perception and language abilities. Lesion locations in the case reports were heterogeneous but connected to common brain regions, including bilateral temporoparietal and insular cortices, precentral gyrus, and cingulum. In the prospective cohort, lesions causing amusia mapped to a common brain network, centering on the right superior temporal cortex and clearly distinct from the network causally associated with aphasia. Lesion-induced longitudinal structural effects in the amusia circuit were confirmed as reduction of both gray and white matter volume, which correlated with the severity of amusia. We demonstrate that despite the heterogeneity of lesion locations disrupting music processing, there is a common brain network that is distinct from the language network. These results provide evidence for the distinct neural substrate of music processing, differentiating music-related functions from language, providing a testable target for noninvasive brain stimulation to treat amusia.

Survey of students and guardians for assessing the early detection of auditory processing disorder and listening difficulties in school-age students.

OBJECTIVE: Auditory processing disorders (APD) and listening difficulties (LiD) are becoming increasingly prevalent in young adults. Our study surveyed students and their guardians to assess the early detection of APD and LiDs in students aged 6-18 years. We estimated the percentage of students with LiDs and assessed their guardians' perceptions during different school years. METHODS: This prospective study enrolled students from schools affiliated with Osaka Kyoiku University and their guardians. Both students and their guardians completed a basic assessment on demographics, and a questionnaire assessing LiD (completed by both students and guardians) and developmental problems (completed only by guardians). LiD was assessed in the following four domains: (i) auditory attention, (ii) auditory memory, (iii) auditory discrimination, and (iv) auditory restoration. The relationship between the school-year group and the total score for LiD and the differences between the students' and guardians' perceptions of the association between the school-year group and LiD domains were examined. RESULTS: Respondents comprised 743 students from 120 classes at three schools and 743 guardians. Hearing loss was reported by 26.5% of students and 26.1% of their guardians, with the majority indicating slight hearing loss. Compared with the students, their guardians more commonly indicated a normal response to all the questions related to LiD. The LiD scores reported by students increased with increasing school years and significantly deviated from those reported by their guardians. The students' scores in the auditory attention and auditory memory domains demonstrated significant increase with increasing school years, with the greatest increase in the auditory attention category. CONCLUSIONS: Students reported increasing severity of LiD with increasing school years, whereas their guardians underreported such symptoms, most significantly in the later school years. Therefore, screening for symptoms related to auditory attention could aid in the early detection of APD and LiD in school-age children.

Evaluation of cognitive functions in the elderly with and without central auditory processing disorder. / Avaliação das funções cognitivas em idosos com e sem alterações no processamento auditivo central.

PURPOSE: Evaluate and compare the performance of cognitive functions between elderly with and without auditory processing disorders. METHODS: Twenty-eight healthy elderly (14 Control group and 14 Auditory Processing Disorder group - APD group) participated in the study. All elderly were submitted to (central) auditory processing evaluation, P300 event-related potential and brief cognitive battery (BCB). In the comparison between subjects, the Mann-Whitney test was applied and in the intra-subjects comparison, the Wilcoxon signed rank test was used. To verify if there was an association between the performance of the PAC and the cognitive variables, Spearman's correlation was used. RESULTS: There were no statistically significant differences between the Control and APD groups for the cognitive abilities assessed by BCB, as well as for the P300 cognitive potential variables. CONCLUSION: Elderly with auditory processing disorders do not seem to show greater cognitive difficulties compared to elderly of the same age group without auditory processing disorders, exception of the clock drawing test, whose task involves multiple cognitive functions, including visuospatial processing, executive function, semantic memory, and planning.

OBJETIVO: Avaliar e comparar as funções cognitivas entre idosos com e sem alteração do processamento auditivo central. MÉTODO: Vinte e oito idosos saudáveis (14 do grupo controle e 14 do grupo Transtorno do Processamento Auditivo Central - TPAC) participaram do estudo. Todos os idosos foram submetidos à bateria mínima de avaliação do processamento auditivo central (PAC), ao potencial auditivo cognitivo P300 e a bateria cognitiva breve (BCB). Na comparação entre sujeitos, foi aplicado o teste de Mann-Whitney e na comparação intra-sujeitos, utilizamos o teste de postos sinalizados de Wilcoxon. Para verificar se houve associação entre o desempenho do PAC e das variáveis cognitivas, foi utilizada a correlação de Spearman. RESULTADOS: Não houve diferenças estatisticamente significantes entre os grupos 'Controle' e TPAC para a maioria das habilidades cognitivas avaliadas por meio da BCB, bem como para as variáveis do potencial cognitivo P300. Contudo, houve diferença estatisticamente significante entre o desempenho do grupo 'Controle' e TPAC para a prova do desenho do relógio. Além disso, foi possível observar correlação entre o desempenho do teste do relógio e no TPF. CONCLUSÃO: Idosos com TPAC não apresentaram alteração na maior parte dos testes cognitivos, com exceção da prova do desenho do relógio, cuja tarefa envolve múltiplas funções cognitivas, incluindo processamento visuoespacial, função executiva, memória semântica e planejamento.

Comportamento Auditivo e Validação no Diagnóstico Audiológico e Intervenção em Bebês e Crianças com Deficiência Auditiva / Auditory Behavior and Validation in Audiological Diagnosis and Intervention in Infants and Children with Hearing Impairment / Comportamiento auditivo y validación en el diagnóstico e intervención audiológicos en bebés y niños con deficiencia auditiva

Introdução: A atuação profissional com bebês e crianças pequenas com deficiência auditiva exige conhecimento e técnica específica no que diz respeito à prescrição e adaptação do aparelho de amplificação sonora individual (AASI) e ao processo de desenvolvimento de linguagem. Limitações e imprecisões ao longo do processo diagnóstico poderão comprometer todos os procedimentos subsequentes do processo de intervenção. Objetivo: Analisar a validação do processo de diagnóstico audiológico e intervenção em bebês e crianças com deficiência auditiva a partir da análise comparativa de exames audiológicos, comportamento auditivo e aplicação do princípio de verificação cruzada após adaptação de AASI. Método: Foram sujeitos da pesquisa 12 crianças de até 36 meses de idade, com diagnóstico de perda auditiva neurossensorial bilateral, selecionados a partir da disponibilidade de acesso ao serviço para a avaliação e agrupados em G1 (sujeitos com Índice de Inteligibilidade de Fala - SII 65 dB até 35%) e G2 (sujeitos com Índice de Inteligibilidade de Fala - SII 65 dB acima de 54%). Resultados: A média de idade do diagnóstico audiológico foi de 4,33 meses. Os resultados audiológicos de todas as crianças tiveram correspondência entre si, com exceção de dois sujeitos do G2. Conclusão: O comportamento auditivo não só permitiu a validação dos processos de diagnóstico e intervenção auditiva dos sujeitos da pesquisa, como também permitiu a identificação de comportamentos não compatíveis com a audibilidade devido ao uso inconsistente dos AASI. A aplicação dos instrumentos de acompanhamento de desenvolvimento mostrou-se adequada para o monitoramento do desenvolvimento de habilidades de audição e linguagem em crianças pequenas. (AU)

Introduction: Professional work with infants and young children with hearing impairment requires specific knowledge and technique regarding the prescription and adaptation of the individual sound amplification device (PSAD) and the language development process. Limitations and inaccuracies throughout the diagnostic process may compromise all subsequent procedures of the intervention process. Purpose: To analyze the validation of the process of audiological diagnosis and intervention in infants and children with hearing impairment based on the comparative analysis of audiological tests, auditory behavior and application of the cross-checking principle after adaptation of hearing aids. Method: The research subjects were 12 children aged up to 36 months, with a diagnosis of bilateral sensorineural hearing loss, selected from the availability of access to the service for the evaluation and grouped into G1 (subjects with Speech Intelligibility Index - SII 65 dB up to 35%) and G2 (subjects with Speech Intelligibility Index - SII 65 dB above 54%). Results: The average age of the audiological diagnosis was 4.33 months. The audiological results of all children corresponded to each other, except for two subjects from G2. Conclusion: The auditory behavior not only allowed the validation of the processes of diagnosis and auditory intervention of the research subjects, but also allowed the identification of behaviors that are not compatible with audibility due to the inconsistent use of hearing aids. The application of developmental monitoring instruments proved to be adequate for monitoring the development of hearing and language skills in young children. (AU)

Introducción: El trabajo profesional con lactantes y niños pequeños con discapacidad auditiva requiere conocimientos y técnica específicos respecto a la prescripción y adaptación del dispositivo individual de amplificación del sonido (PSAD) y el proceso de desarrollo del lenguaje. Las limitaciones e imprecisiones a lo largo del proceso de diagnóstico pueden comprometer todos los procedimientos posteriores del proceso de intervención. Propósito: Analizar la validación del proceso de diagnóstico e intervención audiológica en lactantes y niños con discapacidad auditiva a partir del análisis comparativo de pruebas audiológicas, conducta auditiva y aplicación del principio de cruce tras adaptación de audífonos. Método: Los sujetos de investigación fueron 12 niños de hasta 36 meses, con diagnóstico de hipoacusia neurosensorial bilateral, seleccionados de la disponibilidad de acceso al servicio para la evaluación y agrupados en G1 (sujetos con Índice de inteligibilidade del Habla - SII 65 dB hasta 35%) y G2 (sujetos com Índice de inteligibilidade del Habla - SII 65 dB por encima del 54%). Resultados:La edad promedio del diagnóstico audiológico fue de 4,33 meses. Los resultados audiológicos de todos los niños se correspondieron entre sí, a excepción de dos sujetos del G2. Conclusión: La conducta auditiva no sólo permitió validar los procesos de diagnóstico e intervención auditiva de los sujetos de investigación, sino que también permitió identificar conductas no compatibles con la audibilidad debido al uso inconsistente de audífonos. La aplicación de instrumentos de seguimiento del desarrollo demostró ser adecuada para controlar el desarrollo de las habilidades auditivas y lingüísticas en niños pequeños. (AU)

Auditory Processing Disorder: Protocols and Controversy.

PURPOSE: This study examined current auditory processing disorder (APD) protocols and audiologists' perspectives on the active debate seen in the literature regarding the status of APD as a unique disorder. METHOD: This study used a cross-sectional, nonexperimental survey design. The participants were 134 U.S. audiologists, representing diversity across experience level and work setting. RESULTS: Popular APD tests from prior surveys remain popular, and a few new tests have emerged. Most audiologists use diverse strategies to identify potential comorbid disorders as part of their APD protocol, including multidisciplinary assessment and referral to other specialists. Most participants disagreed with the assertion that APD is not a unique disorder; however, many also pointed out that patients' struggles with listening need to be the primary focus of APD assessment and management, regardless of the label of the disorder. Qualitative analysis of participant comments on the controversy yielded six themes: Clinical Experience, Comorbidity, Listening Skills, Literature Support, Overdiagnosis, and More Information Needed. CONCLUSION: Most participants consider APD to be a unique disorder, citing clinical experience and the literature for support; however, many also indicated APD is complicated by comorbidity and APD may be overdiagnosed.

Auditory cortex and beyond: Deficits in congenital amusia.

Congenital amusia is a neuro-developmental disorder of music perception and production, with the observed deficits contrasting with the sophisticated music processing reported for the general population. Musical deficits within amusia have been hypothesized to arise from altered pitch processing, with impairments in pitch discrimination and, notably, short-term memory. We here review research investigating its behavioral and neural correlates, in particular the impairments at encoding, retention, and recollection of pitch information, as well as how these impairments extend to the processing of pitch cues in speech and emotion. The impairments have been related to altered brain responses in a distributed fronto-temporal network, which can be observed also at rest. Neuroimaging studies revealed changes in connectivity patterns within this network and beyond, shedding light on the brain dynamics underlying auditory cognition. Interestingly, some studies revealed spared implicit pitch processing in congenital amusia, showing the power of implicit cognition in the music domain. Building on these findings, together with audiovisual integration and other beneficial mechanisms, we outline perspectives for training and rehabilitation and the future directions of this research domain.

A data-driven approach to identify a rapid screener for auditory processing disorder testing referrals in adults.

Hearing thresholds form the gold standard assessment in Audiology clinics. However, ~ 10% of adult patients seeking audiological care for self-perceived hearing deficits have thresholds that are normal. Currently, a diagnostic assessment for auditory processing disorder (APD) remains one of the few viable avenues of further care for this patient population, yet there are no standard guidelines for referrals. Here, we identified tests within the APD testing battery that could provide a rapid screener to inform APD referrals in adults. We first analyzed records from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Audiology database to identify adult patients with self-perceived hearing difficulties despite normal audiometric thresholds. We then looked at the patients who were referred for APD testing. We examined test performances, correlational relationships, and classification accuracies. Patients experienced most difficulties within the dichotic domain of testing. Additionally, accuracies calculated from sensitivities and specificities revealed the words-in-noise (WIN), the Random Dichotic Digits Task (RDDT) and Quick Speech in Noise (QuickSIN) tests had the highest classification accuracies. The addition of these tests have the greatest promise as a quick screener during routine audiological assessments to help identify adult patients who may be referred for APD assessment and resulting treatment plans.

Auditory assessment and central auditory processing script for preschool children. / Roteiro de avaliação auditiva e do processamento auditivo central para pré-escolares.

PURPOSE: To develop an assessment script to observe hearing and central auditory processing in preschool children. METHODS: To The script was prepared based on a search in the Scielo databases and in the library of a university in the state of São Paulo using the following keywords: "central auditory processing", "hearing and language", "auditory processing disorders", "auditory processing in preschool children", and "vocabulary assessment", resulting in the selection of fourteen articles and two books. Then, questions related to auditory development and a script for assessing central auditory processing were prepared. RESULTS: The script consists of eight parts, namely: Identification and Anamnesis, Information about Mother and Pregnancy, Complaints, Auditory Development, Language Development, Motor Development, Simplified Auditory Processing Evaluation and Behavioral Audiological Assessment. CONCLUSION: The script is essential, given the lack of screening instruments in the literature for central auditory processing in preschool children that thoroughly investigate the entire process that permeates the auditory and language development of children aged 43 to 47 months.

OBJETIVO: Construir um roteiro de avaliação para observação da audição e do processamento auditivo central em pré-escolares. MÉTODO: Para elaboração do roteiro, primeiramente realizou-se uma busca nas bases de dados Scielo e biblioteca de uma universidade no estado de São Paulo, com as palavras chaves: "processamento auditivo central", "audição e linguagem", "distúrbios do processamento auditivo", "processamento auditivo em pré-escolares", "avaliação do vocabulário", selecionando então quatorze artigos e dois livros. Foram estruturadas perguntas relacionadas ao desenvolvimento auditivo e um roteiro de avaliação do processamento auditivo central. RESULTADOS: O roteiro constitui-se de oito partes, sendo identificação e anamnese, dados maternos e de gestação, queixas, desenvolvimento auditivo, desenvolvimento de linguagem, desenvolvimento motor, Teste auditivo comportamental para avaliação do processamento auditivo central e avaliação audiológica comportamental. CONCLUSÃO: O roteiro é de extrema importância visto que não há na literatura instrumentos de triagem de processamento auditivo em pré-escolares que investigue, de forma minuciosa, todo o processo que permeia o desenvolvimento auditivo e de linguagem de crianças de 43 a 47 meses.

Tone Deafness in Music Does Not Preclude Distributional Learning of Nonnative Tonal Languages in Individuals With Congenital Amusia.

PURPOSE: Previous studies have shown that individuals with congenital amusia exhibit deficient pitch processing across music and language domains. This study investigated whether adult Chinese-speaking listeners with amusia were still able to learn Thai lexical tones based on stimulus frequency of statistical distribution via distributional learning, despite their degraded lexical tone perception. METHOD: Following a pretest-training-posttest design, 21 amusics and 23 typical, musically intact listeners were assigned into bimodal and unimodal distribution conditions. Listeners were asked to discriminate minimal pairs of Thai mid-level tone and falling tone superimposed on variable base syllables and uttered by different speakers. The perceptual accuracy for each test session and improvement from pretest to posttest were collected and analyzed between the two groups using generalized mixed-effects models. RESULTS: When discriminating Thai lexical tones, amusics were less accurate than typical listeners. Nonetheless, similarly to control listeners, perceptual gains from pretest to posttest were observed in bimodally rather than unimodally trained amusics, as evidenced by both trained and nontrained test words. CONCLUSIONS: Amusics are able to learn lexical tones in a second or foreign context of speech. This extends previous research by showing that amusics' distributional learning of linguistic pitch remains largely preserved despite their degraded pitch processing. It is thus likely that manifestations of amusia in speech could not result from their abnormal statistical learning mechanism. This study meanwhile provides a heuristic approach for future studies to apply this paradigm into amusics' treatment to mitigate their pitch-processing disorder.

Behavioral assessment of auditory processing in adulthood: population of interest and tests - a systematic review. / Avaliação comportamental do processamento auditivo na idade adulta: população de interesse e testes - uma revisão sistemática.

PURPOSE: To identify the behavioral tests used to assess auditory processing throughout adulthood, focusing on the characteristics of the target population as an interest group. RESEARCH STRATEGIES: PubMed, CINAHL, Web of Science, and Scielo, databases were searched with descriptors: "auditory perception" or "auditory perception disorders" or "auditory processing" or "central auditory processing" or "auditory processing disorders" or "central auditory processing disorders" with adults OR aging. SELECTION CRITERIA: Studies with humans included, the adult population from 18 to 64 years old, who performed at least one behavioral test to assess auditory processing in the absence of hearing loss. DATA ANALYSIS: Data extraction was performed independently, using a protocol developed by the authors that included different topics, mainly the behavioral auditory tests performed and the results found. RESULTS: Of the 867 records identified, 24 contained the information needed to answer the survey questions. CONCLUSION: Almost all studies were conducted verify performance in one or two auditory processing tests. The target target population was heterogeneous, with the most frequent persons with diabetes, stuttering, auditory processing disorder, and noise exposure. There is little information regarding benchmarks for testing in the respective age groups.

OBJETIVO: Identificar os testes comportamentais utilizados para a avaliação do processamento auditivo ao longo da vida adulta, com enfoque nas características da população alvo enquanto grupo de interesse. ESTRATÉGIA DE PESQUISA: As bases de dados consultadas foram o PubMed, CINAHL, Web of Science e Scielo, a partir dos descritores: "auditory perception" or "auditory perception disorders" or "auditory processing" or "central auditory processing" or "auditory processing disorders" or "central auditory processing disorders" com adults OR aging. CRITÉRIOS DE SELEçÃO: Incluiu-se estudos com humanos, que abordaram a população adulta de 18 a 64 anos, que realizaram pelo menos um teste comportamental para avaliação do processamento auditivo, na ausência de perda auditiva. ANÁLISE DOS DADOS: Realizou-se a extração de dados de forma independente, a partir de um protocolo desenvolvido pelos autores incluindo diferentes tópicos, principalmente os testes auditivos comportamentais realizados e os resultados encontrados. RESULTADOS: Dos 867 registros identificados, 24 foram selecionados como contendo as informações necessárias para responder às perguntas de pesquisa. CONCLUSÃO: Quase a totalidade dos estudos foi conduzida com objetivo de verificar o desempenho em um ou dois testes de processamento auditivo; a população alvo foi heterogênea, as mais frequentes foram diabetes, gagueira, transtorno do processamento auditivo e exposição ao ruído. Há poucas informações sobre os padrões de referência para os testes na respectiva faixa etária.

Screening for Auditory Processing Disorder in French-Speaking School-Age Children: A Pilot Study.

OBJECTIVES: A few clinical screening tools for auditory processing disorder (APD) are currently available. However, most of these tools are in English and cannot be used to screen individuals with a first language other than English. This study aimed to develop an APD screening test battery in French and to assess its psychometric properties in detecting school-age children at risk of APD. METHOD: Prior to their complete audiological APD assessment, 53 children (7-12 years old) were recruited from an audiology clinic. The APD assessment lasted between 2 and 3 hr, including 15-20 min for the screening test battery. The screening test battery was composed of four behavioral subtests and two questionnaires (parent and teacher). RESULTS: When combined, two among the four behavioral subtests showed a sensitivity of 100% and a specificity of 80%. CONCLUSION: The newly developed screening tool could help reduce the number of unnecessary APD assessments, therefore allowing early diagnosis in children with APD and increasing their chances of receiving adequate intervention.

Distributional learning of musical pitch despite tone deafness in individuals with congenital amusia.

Congenital amusia is an innate and lifelong deficit of music processing. This study investigated whether adult listeners with amusia were still able to learn pitch-related musical chords based on stimulus frequency of statistical distribution, i.e., via distributional learning. Following a pretest-training-posttest design, 18 amusics and 19 typical, musically intact listeners were assigned to bimodal and unimodal conditions that differed in distribution of the stimuli. Participants' task was to discriminate chord minimal pairs, which were transposed to a novel microtonal scale. Accuracy rates for each test session were collected and compared between the two groups using generalized mixed-effects models. Results showed that amusics were less accurate than typical listeners at all comparisons, thus corroborating previous findings. Importantly, amusics-like typical listeners-demonstrated perceptual gains from pretest to posttest in the bimodal condition (but not the unimodal condition). The findings reveal that amusics' distributional learning of music remains largely preserved despite their deficient music processing. Implications of the results for statistical learning and intervention programs to mitigate amusia are discussed.

Electrophysiological Testing for an Auditory Processing Disorder and Reading Performance in 54 School Students Aged Between 8 and 12 years.

BACKGROUND Learning to read and write depends on the effective functioning of various sensory systems, including the auditory system. Auditory information processing involves behavioral and electrophysiological processes. Electrophysiological procedures are used to investigate activity in the auditory pathway in response to sound stimuli, and the associated cortical activity in discrimination, integration, and attention. The study evaluated electrophysiological testing for an auditory processing disorder and reading performance in 54 school students aged between 8 and 12 years. MATERIAL AND METHODS The study involved 54 public school students aged between 8 and 12 years, who were divided into a study group and control group. All children underwent basic audiological assessment, rating of reading and writing ability, non-verbal intelligence, auditory brainstem response, long-latency auditory-evoked potentials (LLAEP), frequency following responses (FFR), and auditory training (AT). RESULTS The basic audiological evaluation showed a statistically significant difference between groups only for the frequency of 6 kHz. The LLAEP response had a statistically significant difference between groups for N1 latency, P300 latency, and amplitude. Finally, there was a statistically significant difference between pre-AT and post-AT to LLAEP for latencies of P2, N2, and P300 and amplitudes of N2 and P300, and to FFR for latency of wave C. CONCLUSIONS This study showed that electrophysiological tests are sensitive tools for identifying deficits in the auditory pathway. Moreover, latency measures can detect improvements from an auditory training program. In this way, an auditory intervention program might help children with reading and writing difficulties.

Dichotic listening deficits in children with hearing loss.

PURPOSE: This correlational study compared dichotic listening among children with significant hearing loss to typically developing children and children clinically assessed for auditory processing disorder. METHOD: Recorded versions of two dichotic tests were delivered under earphones or in the sound field for children using amplification. Individual ear scores and interaural asymmetry were compared to normative data. Matched deficit patterns from both tests were identified, ranked for severity of deficit, and compared across groups. Relationships between dichotic scores and factors related to amplification were investigated in the children with hearing loss. RESULTS: Dichotic scores were significantly poorer among children with hearing loss without the large interaural asymmetries seen in children assessed clinically for auditory processing problems. Device type and age of implantation had no effect on scores; non-dominant ear scores on the digits test were significantly correlated to age of device use in the left ear and duration of device use in the right ear. Non-dominant ear scores with digits were also significantly correlated with bilateral word recognition. CONCLUSIONS: Poor dichotic perception in children with significant hearing losses may be related to the use of recorded test materials, immature skills in attention and working memory, or other factors that contribute to development of vocabulary and language. These weaknesses may interfere with successful mainstream educational placement in these children. Assessment of dichotic performance in this population could lead to deficit-specific interventions that may improve outcomes and enhance educational opportunities for children with hearing loss.

ARIA treatment benefits are related to severity of dichotic listening deficits in children.

PURPOSE: This study investigated the relationship between dichotic listening (DL) benefits from treatment with Auditory Rehabilitation for Interaural Asymmetry (ARIA) and the severity of DL deficits quantified prior to the onset of treatment. We hypothesized that children with more severe DL deficits would demonstrate greater benefits following ARIA. METHOD: A scale that quantifies deficit severity was applied to dichotic listening scores obtained before and after training with ARIA at multiple clinical sites (n = 92). Using multiple regression analyses, we evaluated the predictive effects of deficit severity on DL outcomes. RESULTS: Results demonstrated that deficit severity can predict benefits from ARIA, as measured by improvements in DL scores in both ears. CONCLUSION: ARIA is an adaptive training paradigm for improving binaural integration abilities in children with DL deficits. The results from this study suggest that children with more severe DL deficits achieve greater benefits from ARIA and that a severity scale may provide important clinical information for recommending intervention.

Individuals with congenital amusia remember music they like.

Music is better recognized when it is liked. Does this association remain evident when music perception and memory are severely impaired, as in congenital amusia? We tested 11 amusic and 11 matched control participants, asking whether liking of a musical excerpt influences subsequent recognition. In an initial exposure phase, participants-unaware that their recognition would be tested subsequently-listened to 24 musical excerpts and judged how much they liked each excerpt. In the test phase that followed, participants rated whether they recognized the previously heard excerpts, which were intermixed with an equal number of foils matched for mode, tempo, and musical genre. As expected, recognition was in general impaired for amusic participants compared with control participants. For both groups, however, recognition was better for excerpts that were liked, and the liking enhancement did not differ between groups. These results contribute to a growing body of research that examines the complex interplay between emotions and cognitive processes. More specifically, they extend previous findings related to amusics' impairments to a new memory paradigm and suggest that (1) amusic individuals are sensitive to an aesthetic and subjective dimension of the music-listening experience, and (2) emotions can support memory processes even in a population with impaired music perception and memory.

Altered structural connectome of children with auditory processing disorder: a diffusion MRI study.

Auditory processing disorder (APD) is a listening impairment that some school-aged children may experience despite having normal peripheral hearing. Recent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has revealed an alteration in regional functional brain topology in children with APD. However, little is known about the structural organization in APD. We used diffusion MRI data to investigate the structural connectome of 58 children from 8 to 14 years old diagnosed with APD (n = 29) and children without hearing complaints (healthy controls, HC; n = 29). We investigated the rich-club organization and structural connection differences between groups. The APD group showed similar rich-club organization and edge-wise connection compared with the HC group. However, at the regional level, we observed increased average path length (APL) and betweenness centrality in the right inferior parietal lobule and inferior precentral gyrus, respectively, in the APD group. Only HCs demonstrated a positive association between APL and the listening-in-spatialized-noise-sentences task in the left orbital gyrus. In line with previous findings, the current results provide evidence for altered structural networks at the regional level in the APD group, suggesting the involvement of multimodal deficits and a role for structure-function alteration in the listening difficulties of children with APD.

Music perception in acquired prosopagnosia.

BACKGROUND: Acquired prosopagnosia is often associated with other deficits such as dyschromatopsia and topographagnosia, from damage to adjacent perceptual networks. A recent study showed that some subjects with developmental prosopagnosia also have congenital amusia, but problems with music perception have not been described with the acquired variant. OBJECTIVE: Our goal was to determine if music perception was also impaired in subjects with acquired prosopagnosia, and if so, its anatomic correlate. METHOD: We studied eight subjects with acquired prosopagnosia, all of whom had extensive neuropsychological and neuroimaging testing. They performed a battery of tests evaluating pitch and rhythm processing, including the Montréal Battery for the Evaluation of Amusia. RESULTS: At the group level, subjects with anterior temporal lesions were impaired in pitch perception relative to the control group, but not those with occipitotemporal lesions. Three of eight subjects with acquired prosopagnosia had impaired musical pitch perception while rhythm perception was spared. Two of the three also showed reduced musical memory. These three reported alterations in their emotional experience of music: one reported music anhedonia and aversion, while the remaining two had changes consistent with musicophilia. The lesions of these three subjects affected the right or bilateral temporal poles as well as the right amygdala and insula. None of the three prosopagnosic subjects with lesions limited to the inferior occipitotemporal cortex exhibited impaired pitch perception or musical memory, or reported changes in music appreciation. CONCLUSION: Together with the results of our previous studies of voice recognition, these findings indicate an anterior ventral syndrome that can include the amnestic variant of prosopagnosia, phonagnosia, and various alterations in music perception, including acquired amusia, reduced musical memory, and subjective reports of altered emotional experience of music.