Survey of auditory discrimination skill in 4-6 years old children in Semnan city

ABSTRACT

Auditory discrimination is one component of central auditory processing skills or auditory perception, that has an important role in acquisition and production of speech sounds. Auditory discrimination test is a tool for screening or diagnosis of auditory discrimination. r The aim of this study is to investigate of auditory discrimination development process in 4-6 years old children in Semnan city. This cross-sectional survey was done on 200 normal 4-6 years old children in semnan city. Auditory discrimination skill was evaluated by Wepman auditory discrimination test [WADT]. The level of significancy in this study was 0.05. Auditory discrimination skills based on percentage of 5 and 95 for 4 years old children were 20 and 36, 21.85 and 38 for 5 years old, 23.30 and 39.35 for 6 years old children. There was significant differences between 4 years old children with 5 and 6 years old children In auditory discrimination skill [P=0.003], but there was no significant difference between 5 and 6 years old children[P=0.21]. In addition, auditory discrimination test scores between boys and girls were not significant [P=0.34]. Results of this study showed that children ability in discrimination of sounds was increased with age