學齡期特定型語言障礙兒童聽知覺區辨能力初探

Auditory Processing in School-Aged Children with Specific Language Impairments

本研究旨在瞭解學齡期特定型語言障礙兒童與一般兒童在聽知覺區辨能力上的差異，及聽知覺區辨能力與語言能力之間的關聯。研究對象為20 名台北縣市國小資源班的語障兒童，及20 名生理年齡、智力相配對的一般兒童。所有受試者皆接受標準化智力測驗、語言相關測驗及自編電腦化聽知覺區辨能力作業。結果顯示特定型語言障礙兒童有聽知覺區辨的困難，在頻率差異聽辨、語音聽辨及聲調聽辨作業上的表現都明顯低於一般兒童。語障兒童對頻率差異較大的純音配對，及語音長度較長的雙唇塞音-齒槽塞音配對語音（/ba/-/da/），其聽辨表現會隨之提升；然而對聲調聽辨的正確率並不受音長及訊號間隔時長影響。聲調聽辨及頻率差異聽辨表現與三項語言測驗的表現都有中度以上的相關，其中/da/-/ta/的區辨表現與「詞彙」測驗及「兒童口語理解測驗」的得分有顯著相關，且迴歸分析顯示聲調聽辨表現對語言能力的預測力最高。同時也發現特定型語言障礙兒童對聲音的時間特性及頻譜分佈特性的聽知覺處理有困難，可能影響其語言的學習與表現。研究結果建議發展一套適用於測量中文聽知覺區辨能力的測驗，以期對國內特定型語言障礙兒童的聽知覺區辨缺陷的評估與介入，提供更進一步的參考。

The main purpose of this study was to compare the auditory processing ability of school-aged children with specific language impairments with that of age/IQ matched students. In addition, the correlations among the different aspects of auditory processing abilities and language abilities were examined. Twenty school- aged children with specific language impairments (SLI) and twenty matched students participated in this study. All 40 participants were assessed via the standardized intelligience, language and computerized auditory processing tests to measure their nonverbal intelligience, language abilities, and auditory perception abilities. The results showed that the children with SLI performed significantly poorer on the frequency discrimination, speech discrimination, and lexical tone discrimination tasks compared to the matched group. This indicated that children with SLI have auditory perception difficulties across different features. Children with SLI performed better on a frequency discrimination task when the frequency difference of the tone pair was enlarged. Also, when the duration of speech sounds (/ba/-/da/) was longer, children with SLI performed better on the speech discrimination task. However, there were no significant effects of lexical tone duration and inter-stimulus interval on the tone discrimination performance.The auditory processing abilities were significantly correlated with language abilities, and the regression analysis revealed that lexical tone discrimination was the best predictor of language ability. Deficits in both timing processing and spectral resolution of sounds were exhibited in children with SLI and could influence their language-learning process. Further considerations regarding assessment and intervention of the auditory processing of Mandarin-speaking children with SLI were discussed.