Survey of Auditory Discrimination skill in 4-6 years old children in Semnan city

Background and Aim: 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. The aim of this study is to investigate of auditory discrimination development process in 4-6 years old children in Semnan city. Materials and Methods: 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. Results: 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). Conclusion: Results of this study showed that children ability in discrimination of sounds was increased with age. Key words: Central Auditory Processing, Development, Auditory Discrimination Tests