Análise do desempenho de crianças de 7 a 11 anos nos testes de localização da fonte sonora, organização acústico motora e discriminação auditiva

Abstract

Objective: to investigate sound localization, motor-acoustic organization and auditory discrimination performance in 7 to 11 year-old children and to describe results according to gender and to answers of teachers and parents to a questionnaire. Method: 60 children were evaluated: 30 2nd or 3rd grade students and 30 4th or 5th grade. The distribution of the students according to age was: 26,7% were 7, 21,7% were 8, 15% were 9, 35% were 10 and 1,6% were 11 years old. They were submitted to visual inspection of external acoustic meatus, pure tone audiometry, timpanometry (as an inclusion criteria). The study had three phases: screening questionnaire answered by parents, learning difficulties questionnaire answered by teachers and sound localization, motor-acoustic organization and auditory discrimination performance. Results: there was no statistically significant difference between level of scholarship and tests performance; teachers answers for the learning difficulties questionnaire and tests performance. Students who performed poorly in the tests were oral respirators, presented more ear ache and throat infection episodes, frequently asked repetition of what was said, loud speakers and had familiar history of hearing loss, according to the comparison of parents answers to a questionnaire and tests performance. Conclusions: 1. it was not possible to establish a relationship between age and tests performance; 2. learning difficulties questions for the teachers did not allow detecting students who needed auditory processing evaluation; 3. the questionnaire answered by parents allowed identifying students at risk for poor performance in the applied auditory abilities tests