CoDAS vol.25 número2 en a16v25n2

Brief Communication

Comunicação Breve

CoDAS 2013;25(2):188-90 Correspondence address: Aparecido José Couto Soares

R. Cipotânea, 51, Cidade Universitária, São Paulo (SP), Brasil, CEP: 05360-160. E-mail: ajcsoares@usp.br

Received: 16/8/2012

Accepted: 8/1/2013

Study carried out at the Laboratories for Speech-Language Pathology Investigation in Reading and Writing within Human Audition at the Physiotherapy, Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology and Occupational Therapy Department, School of Medicine, Universidade de São Paulo – USP – São Paulo (SP), Brasil. (1) Physiotherapy, Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology and Occupational Therapy Department, School of Medicine, Universidade de São Paulo – FMUSP – São Paulo (SP), Brasil.

Conlict of interests: nothing to declare.

Aparecido José Couto Soares

Seisse Gabriela Gandoli Sanches

Débora Cristina Alves

Renata Mota Mamede Carvallo

Maria Silvia Cárnio

Keywords

Evaluation Learning; Reading Hearing Learning disorders

Temporal auditory processing and phonological

aware-ness in reading and writing disorders: preliminary data

Processamento temporal e consciência fonológica nas

alter-ações de leitura e escrita: dados preliminares

ABSTRACT

Purpose: To verify if there is an association between temporal auditory tests and phonological awareness in individuals with reading and writing disorders. Methods: Sixteen children were subjects of this study, aged between 7 and 12 years old, who had reading and writing disorders conirmed after speciic assessment. All participants underwent phonological awareness assessment using CONFIAS test. In order to assess the auditory temporal processing, duration and frequency pattern tests were used. Results: The descriptive analysis indicated low performance in syllabic and phonemic activities of phonological awareness as well as in temporal auditory tests. Fisher’s test indicated association between disorders in auditory temporal processing and phonological awareness (p>0.001). It suggests that disorders in temporal processing contribute to low performance in phonological awareness tasks. Conclusions: There was association between performance in tem- poral auditory tests and in the phonological awareness. Data found provide relections about including temporal auditory assessment among procedures used in the analysis of individuals with reading and writing disorders.

RESUMO

Objetivo: Veriicar se há associação entre o desempenho nos testes auditivos temporais e na consciência fonológica em indivíduos com alterações de leitura e escrita. Métodos: Foram sujeitos deste estudo 16 crianças, entre 7 e 12 anos, com alterações de leitura e escrita conirmada após avaliação especíica. Todos os participantes foram submetidos à avaliação da consciência fonológica, utilizando-se o teste de consciência fonológica – Instrumento de Avaliação Sequencial. Para avaliar o processamento auditivo temporal foram utilizados os testes de padrão de duração e frequência, realizados em cabina audiométrica. Resultados:  A análise descritiva indicou desempenho alterado nas habilidades silábicas e fonêmicas da consciência fonológica, bem como nos testes temporais. O teste de Fisher indicou associação entre a presença de alteração no processamento temporal e nas tarefas de consciência fonológica (p<0,001), sugerindo que a alteração no processamento temporal contribua para pior desempenho nestas habilidades. Conclusões: Houve associação entre o desempenho em testes auditivos temporais e consciência fonológica. Os dados encontrados trazem relexões no sentido de incluir a avaliação dos padrões temporais dentre os procedimentos utilizados na avaliação dos indivíduos com alterações de leitura e escrita.

Descritores

Temporal auditory processing and phonological awareness 189

CoDAS 2013;25(2):188-90

RESULTS

The descriptive analysis showed disorders in the

perfor-mance of syllabic and phonemic skills (Table 1).

Table 1. Performance of children in the phonological awareness tests

Phonological awareness tasks

Average Standard

deviation Median Minimum Maximum

Syllables 34.75 7.73 37.00 9.00 40.00

Phonemes 23.25 7.67 27.00 8.00 30.00

Fisher’s test indicated a relationship between the deviation

in temporal processing and CF tasks (p<0.001), suggesting

that auditory processing disorders led to a poor performance

in CF skills (Table 2).

Table 2. Performance of children according to the presence of a change in the temporal auditory tests and phonological awareness performance (n=16)

Phonological awareness

Expected Changed Total p-value

Presence of temporal ordering disorder

No 5 0 5

<0.001

Yes 0 11 11

Total 5 11 16

DISCUSSION

Temporal processing is a characteristic of perception that

helps identify small acoustic variations that occur in speech,

allowing an individual to distinguish between segments,

syl-lables, and words in continuous speech

_{. Thus, it may be}

said that the development of temporal processing skills is

important to CF because it includes tasks of synthesis and

segmentation as well as syllabic and phonemic transposition.

Assuming that temporal processing is related to the

per-ception of suprasegmental features of speech, because it

involves the abilities to perceive and store nonverbal

acous-tic stimuli, temporal deicit may lead to a poor performance

in reading skills and general learning

_{. This hypothesis was}

conirmed in this study, which showed an association between

poor performance in temporal processing and CF, a skill

con-sidered to be one of the precursors of reading.

An investigation

_{concluded that dificulties involving}

temporal processing would be expressed by a limited ability

to identify and analyze short acoustic elements”, such as

con-sonants, which are characterized by rapid formant transition.

This would lead to a dificulty in associating letters with

spe-ciic sounds; therefore, temporal processing plays an

impor-tant role in CF skills.

The association between disorders in temporal

process-ing and low performance in CF tasks indicates the need for

including temporal processing training in the treatment of

INTRODUCTION

Disorders in temporal auditory processing may lead to

a poor performance in reading and writing

_{A high}

proi-ciency in handling the sounds of speech is directly related to

a better reading performance. Such skill characterizes

pho-nological awareness

(CF)

_{, which is usually impaired in}

reading and writing disorders. Studies show that people with

reading and writing disorders may develop some kind of

hear-ing impairment, preventhear-ing information from behear-ing correctly

processed, therefore interfering with the learning process

_.

Considering that temporal auditory processing is related

to the perception of speech

_{, it is very important to perform}

hearing tests, including oral and written language tests, to

correctly diagnose temporal skill disorders. Moreover, it is

necessary to investigate the relationship between CF

perfor-mance and temporal auditory tests, because the integrity of

the physiological auditory mechanism plays a fundamental

role in learning how to read and write

_{. Hence, the main}

goal of this study was to examine the relationship between

performance in auditory temporal tests and CF tasks among

individuals with reading and writing disorders.

METHOD

The study was conducted after obtaining approval from the

Comitê de Ética da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade

de São Paulo (USP), resolution number 305/10. Sixteen

chil-dren with reading and writing disorders were included in this

study (age 7–12 years; average age of 10 years and 6 months; 5

females and 11 males). Criteria used for selecting the children

included: children taking audiological treatment; not presenting

signs and symptoms of neurological, behavioral, or cognitive

diseases; and an auditory tone limit of ≤20 dBNA. All children

underwent audiological evaluation (pure tone audiometry and

speech) and speciic assessment of reading; writing; and skills

such as rapid automatized naming, CF, and phonological

opera-tional memory; the tests were conducted by the researchers.

In order to evaluate CF, the CF test was performed using

the Sequential Evaluation Instrument (CONFIAS)

_{, and it}

individually performed according to the test descriptions

_.

The maximum score was 70 (40 points – syllable and 30

points – phonemic). The childrens’ performance was rated as

expected or disordered considering the rate ranking described

in the test, which is deined by the number of hits expected for

each child according to his/her writing level

_.

In order to evaluate temporal auditory processing, the

standard tone duration (TPD) and frequency (TPF) tests were

used (AUDITEC, Saint Louis, USA). The tests were

per-formed in an audiometric cabin and applied in both ears at

the same time with an intensity of 40 dBNS above the speech

recognition limit using a CD-player connected to audiometer

GSI 61 (GSI Grason Stadler, Eden Prairie, MN, USA).

190 Temporal auditory processing and phonological awareness

CoDAS 2013;25(2):188-90

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children with reading and writing disorders as well as CF

dis-orders. This will beneit CF development and improve reading

and writing skills.

This study makes an important contribution in explaining the

impact of temporal skills on CF performance, which may lead

to new paths in the treatment of reading and writing disorders.

CONCLUSIONS

There was an association between performance in

tem-poral auditory tests and CF tasks. The data obtained provide

relections on including temporal auditory assessment among

procedures used for assessment of children with reading and

writing disorders.

* MSC and RMMC contributed with the study design, results´ analysis and discussion. AJCS and SGGS contributed with the Data collection, study design, results´ analysis, discussion and article writing; DCA contributed with the results´ analysis, discussion and article writing.

REFERENCES

1. Gil D, Almeida CC, Phee AM, Artoni AL, Pellogia CC, Antunes F, et al. Efeito do treinamento auditivo para a percepção musical nos testes de padrão de frequência e duração. Acta WHO. 2000;19(2):64-7.