auditory recognition of words and digits in multitalker babble in learning-disabled children with dichotic listening deficit

conclusions monaural and binaural recognition of words and digits-in-noise are impaired in ld children with dichotic listening deficit. it seems that bdsd children show an inter-aural asymmetry in recognition of words-in-noise with poorer performance in the right ear. background previous studies have reported the weakness of recognition of speech-in-noise and dichotic listening deficit in learning-disabled (ld) children. this study aimed at further investigating these two deficits in ld children. methods overall, 33 ld children with dichotic listening deficit from a government rehabilitation center and 39 normal-achieving (nla) children from three elementary schools were selected with the convenience sampling method to participate in this cross-sectional study (tehran, iran). learning-disabled children were categorized in two categories of unilateral dichotic separation deficit (udsd) and bilateral dichotic separation deficit (bdsd). results mean (± sd) of signal-to-noise ratio (snr) for binaural recognition of words and digits-in-noise in ld children (3.5 ± 1.7 and -11.0 ± 2.1 db, respectively) was significantly higher than corresponding means of nla children (1.8 ± 1.1 and -13.8 ± 1.1 db, respectively (p = 0.001)). mean snr of the right ear in bdsd children in recognition of words-in-noise (5.0 ± 1.9 db) was significantly higher than that of the right ear in udsd children (3.5 ± 1.5 db; p = 0.018, d = 0.96).