Short-term effects of acoustically controlled auditory training in children with impaired school performance

ABSTRACT Purpose To investigate the effectiveness of acoustically controlled auditory training (ACAT) and the maintenance of auditory skills acquired by children with impaired school performance. Methods Sample consisting of 20 schoolchildren: Control Group (CG – N=10) and Intervention Group (IG – N=10), aged from 8 to 13 years old, results below expectations in a school performance screening, adequate results in a cognitive screening and diagnosed with central auditory processing disorder (CAPD) after a battery of behavioral tests. The CG did not receive any type of intervention, only evaluation and reevaluation after three months. The IG was assessed immediately after eight ACAT sessions and three months post-intervention. Auditory processing assessment and reassessment data were subjected to statistical analysis (p<0.05). Results The sample was considered homogeneous regarding gender, age, education level and academic performance. Regarding CAP assessment data, both groups were homogeneous (excepting the Synthetic Sentence Identification – SSI test). Children from IG improved their performance on the Dichotic Digit, Consonant Vowel, SSI and Frequency Pattern (FPT) tests immediately after the intervention. After three months of ACAT, these values remained the same or increased, except for FPT. In the qualitative analysis, between normal and altered, the IG maintained adequate results after three months of ACAT. In the CG, six children maintained altered results and four reached normality in the reassessment after three months. Conclusion ACAT proved to be effective for rehabilitating the auditory skills of children with impaired school performance even three months after the end of the intervention.