Comparative Study of the ability of selective attention and speech perception in noise between 6 to 9 year old normal and learning disabled children

Object: Selective auditory attention and speech perception in the presence of noise are necessary skills to correctly process speech. Persian version of monaural selective auditory attention test [P-mSAAT] that simultaneously assesses selective auditory attention and speech in noise perception performance was used in the present study. Design: The P-mSAAT was performed on 89 normal children aged 6 to 9 and 24 children with learning disability sampled from different schools in Tehran in two competitive and non-competitive ways. Results: The average of test scores had a significant difference in a competitive way between normal and children with learning disability (P<0/001). Furthermore, the test scores improved as a function of age in the both groups. Conclusion: Findings of the current study demonstrated that children presented with learning disability had difficulty in speech perception in the presence of competitive noise accompanied by reduced selective auditory attention ability. It is also suggested that P-mSAAT can be used as a screening test in diagnosing Learning disability in children aged 6 to 9 due to its high sensitivity.