Contemporary Approaches to Audiological Assessment in Young Children

It is a continual challenge for clinical audiologists to obtain valid and reliable information concerning the auditory sensitivity and auditory processing abilities of young children, especially those with language disorders. The majority of the tests that are available for use with young children do not provide much information regarding the problems they are likely to encounter in typical communication situations. This paper describes a new "class" of auditory tests designed to evaluate the ability of young children to (1) detect commonly encountered sounds, (2) localize sound sources, and (3) understand speech in noise. These tests appear to be sensitive to the effects of auditory pathology and to the normal development of auditory processing skills.