Diagnostic tests for children with auditory processing disorder

Funding from Deafness Research UK is enabling Dr Justin Cowan at the Institute of Child Health and Oxford University to carry out a study into the better diagnosis of auditory processing disorder (APD).

[Small project grant, 2006-2007]

Dr Cowan and his collaborators have been working on the production of a comprehensive battery of audiological, cognitive and psychoacoustic measures to test for APD. With the normative data gathered for these measures on over 75 children there is now, for the first time, the opportunity to fully characterise the nature of the impairments shown by children clinically diagnosed with auditory processing disorder.

Patients with a clinical diagnosis of APD will be identified from Great Ormond Street Hospital. The Children’s Auditory Processing Evaluation, a battery designed to identify auditory processing deficits in children will be administered following pilot work which has already established the feasibility of the study protocol on an initial group of children.

Healthcare professionals working with children presenting with suspected APD would benefit greatly from standardised assessment batteries designed specifically for such referrals. This project is an essential step in providing the wider clinical community with such a diagnostic tool. This is also essential in the evaluation of benefit derived from a range of possible intervention strategies, for example, auditory training packages.