The current study involved two experiments designed to investigate the auditory processing abilities of children diagnosed with ASD. Experiment I was designed to further develop the Auditory Behavior Questionnaire (ABQ) in children with ASD. Parents of children with ASD completed the ABQ through an online survey. A revised version of the ABQ was created and used in the second experiment.
A behavioral evaluation of auditory processing was completed in Experiment II through the use of dichotic word recognition and word recognition in multitalker babble. Three groups of subjects participated: children with ASD (10-15 years), typical developing children (10-15 years) and young adults (18-35 years). Results revealed that children with ASD performed poorer than the typical developing children and young adults on dichotic tasks. Overall differences in subject groups were impacted by significantly poorer performance in the left ear for the ASD group during all conditions of dichotic word recognition. Some group differences were noted in the word recognition in multitalker babble condition but most notably the left ear condition revealed significantly poorer performance for children with ASD versus the typical group providing further evidence of auditory processing deficits. Individual variability within the children with ASD was evident and resulted in three subjects with substantially greater deficits in auditory processing when compared to group performance for all tasks.
Overall, the present study suggests that differences exist in the auditory processing abilities of children with ASD and their typical developing peers. The use of dichotic word recognition, word recognition in multitalker babble and the ABQ was found to be effective in the assessment of auditory processing in children with ASD. Future clinical applications include the use of these tools to identify children with ASD that have abnormal auditory processing that would otherwise go undiagnosed and untreated. Additionally, recommendations based on the results of these assessment tools can be made to address individual auditory processing deficits and lead to appropriate interventions and improved treatment outcomes.