Research Article

Comparison between sustained auditory attention capacity in blind and normal children

Abstract

Background and Aim: Attention is an important cognitive process that is necessary for educational purposes. Blind people are deprived from the most widely used human sense, the sense of vision. There are reports that blind individuals have a significantly better performance in attentional tasks, as compared with normal subjects. The purpose of this study was to evaluate sustained auditory attention capacity of Persian blind children aged 8 to 10 years.
Methods: This study was performed on 60 blind children (50 boys) aged 8 to 10 years. The control group consisted of 60 normal children (49 boys) at the same age of the test group. In this study sustained auditory attention capacity test (SAACT), otoscopy, Edinburgh and audiometry tests were used. For statistical analysis non-parametric Mann-Whitney U and Chi square tests at p=0.05 significance level were used.
Results: There was a significant difference in total score of sustained auditory attention capacity test (p=0.038) and Impulsiveness error between blind and normal children (p<0.001). Blind subjects had fewer impulsiveness errors and lower total score. Considering inattentive error (p=1.00) and attention reduction span index (p=0.301), there was no significant difference between the groups.
Conclusion: It seems that sustained auditory attention capacity in blind Persian children is larger than age-matched normal group. This can indicate sort of sensory compensation after loss of vision early in life.

1. Anderson JR. Cognitive psychology and its implications. 6th ed. Duffield: Worth Publishers; 2004.
2. Choudhury N, Gorman KS. The relationship between sustained attention and cognitive performance in 17-24-month old toddlers. Infant Child Dev. 2000;9(3):127-46.
3. Gianvecchio L, French L. Sustained attention, inattention, receptive language, and story interruptions in preschool Head Start story time. J Appl Dev Psychol. 2002;23(4):393-407.
4. Mahone EM, Schneider HE. Assessment of attention in preschoolers. Neuropsychol Rev. 2012;22(4):361-83.
5. Riccio CA, Reynolds CR, Lowe P, Moore JJ. The continuous performance test: a window on the neural substrates for attention? Arch Clin Neuropsychol. 2002;17(3):235-72.
6. Feniman MR, Ortelan RR, Lauris JR, Campos CF, Cruz MS. A proposed behavioral tool to assess sustained auditory attention. Braz J Otorhinolaryngol. 2007;73(4):523-7.
7. Fortin M, Voss P, Lassonde M, Lepore F. Sensory loss and brain reorganization. Med Sci (Paris). 2007;23(11):917-22. French.
8. Ziaee H, Shoja MR, Rabbanikhah Z, Mahdavi M, Rostami P, Rashidi M, et al. Prevalence and causes of blindness and low vision in Yazd province. Bina J Ophthalmol. 2012; 18 (2): 191-9. Persian.
9. Hugdahl K, Ek M, Takio F, Rintee T, Tuomainen J, Haarala C, et al. Blind individuals show enhanced perceptual and attentional sensitivity for identification of speech sounds. Brain Res Cogn Brain Res. 2004;19(1):28-32.
10. Soltanparast S, Jafari Z, Sameni SJ, Salehi M. Psychometric properties of Persian version of the sustained auditory attention capacity test in children with attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder. Med J Islam Repub Iran. 2014;28:14.
11. Robert SS., Peggy N. Puretone evaluation. In: Katz J, editor. Handbook of clinical audiology. 6th ed. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins; 2009.p. 39.
12. Mondelli MF, Carvalho FR, Feniman MR, Lauris JR. Mild hearing loss: performance in the sustained auditory attention ability test. Pro Fono. 2010;22(3):245-50. Portuguese.
13. Seidel WT, Joschko M. Evidence of difficulties in sustained attention in children with ADDH. J Abnorm Child Psychol, 1990. 18(2): p. 214-29.
14. Sykes DH, Douglas VI, Morgenstern G. Sustained attention in hyperactive children. J Child Psychol Psychiatry, 1973. 14(3): p. 213-20.
15. Norman JF, Bartholomew AN. Blindness enhances tactile acuity and haptic 3-D shape discrimination.Atten Percept Psychophys. 2011;73(7):2323-31.
16. Wan CY, Wood AG, Reutens DC, Wilson SJ. Early but not late-blindness leads to enhanced auditory perception. Neuropsychologia. 2010;48(1):344-8.
17. Rauschecker JP. Compensatory plasticity and sensory substitution in the cerebral cortex.Trends Neurosci. 1995;18(1):36-43.
18. Oldfield SR, Parker SP. Acuity of sound localisation: a topography of auditory space. I. Normal hearing conditions. Perception. 1984;13(5):581-600.
19. Chen Q, Zhang M, Zhou X. Spatial and nonspatial peripheral auditory processing in congenitally blind people. Neuroreport. 2006;17(13):1449-52.
20. Després O, Candas V, Dufour A. Spatial auditory compensation in early-blind humans: involvement of eye movements and/or attention orienting? Neuropsychologia. 2005;43(13):1955-62.
21. Garg A, Schwartz D, Stevens AA. Orienting auditory spatial attention engages frontal eye fields and medial occipital cortex in congenitally blind humans. Neuropsychologia. 2007;45(10):2307-21.
22. Van Velzen J, Eardley AF, Forster B, Eimer M. Shifts of attention in the early blind: An ERP study of attentional control processes in the absence of visual spatial information. Neuropsychologia. 2006;44(12):2533-46.
Files
IssueVol 24 No 3 (2015) QRcode
SectionResearch Article(s)
Keywords
Sustained auditory attention capacity children blindness
Rights and permissions
Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
How to Cite
1.
Zia M, Mohammadkhani G, Hajiabolhassan F, Jalaie S, Panahi R, Ghassem Jahroudi A. Comparison between sustained auditory attention capacity in blind and normal children. Aud Vestib Res. 2015;24(3):152-156.