Auditory Fusion among Learning Disabled,Reading Disabled,and Normal Children

Abstract

One hundred thirty-five children aged 7 through 9 years were asked to indicate whether they heard one or two sounds when presented with 270 separate pairs of tones. Each pair consisted of two tones separated by a silent interval that varied from 0 through 40msec. The frequencies of the tones that comprised the pairs were 250 through 4,000 Hz at one-octave intervals. These stimuli were presented at three sensation levels: 20, 40, and 60dB. All sensation levels and frequencies were rotated to control for order and practice effects. The results indicate that normal children experience auditory fusion at shorter time intervals than is true for reading disordered or learning disabled children, that signal intensity affects auditory fusion for allgroups, and that only the learning disabled children are differentially affected by the frequency (hertz) of the stimulus tones.

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