Performance of children with normal articulation on two tests of central auditory processing

The purpose of this study was to explore the performance of children with now-normal articulation skill on two tests of central auditory processing. The two test paradigms used in this study were dichotic listening with CV syllables as stimuli and a variety of tone patterns using combinations of 500 Hz and 1000 Hz tones as stimuli. Six subject groups were used with 10 subjects assigned to each group on the basis of age and previous articulation skill. This method of assignment resulted in three experimental groups and three control groups. No significant differences were found to exist between experimental groups and their matched controls regarding performance on either of the central auditory tests. However, significant differences were discovered to exist between the subjects in the youngest age category and the subjects in the older age categories. Regardless of experimental or control group assignment, the subjects less than 12 years of age consistently scored more poorly than those subjects older than 12 years. This finding appears to indicate that language facility is a maturational skill and that this linguistic maturation appears to be complete by the age of 12 years.