Relationship Between Cognitive Abilities and Basic Auditory Processing in Young Adults

Purpose: The diagnosis of auditory processing disorder (APD) is controversial particularly due to the influence of higher order factors of language and cognition on the diagnostic APD testing. As a result, there might be a need for testing for other domains (e.g., cognition) along with conducting the diagnostic APD testing to rule out the influence of other domains. In order to make recommendations on whether cognitive testing is needed along with the auditory processing testing, as a starting point, the current study was conducted to examine the relationship between cognitive abilities and basic auditory processing in young adults. Method: A total of 38 young adults with normal audiometric thresholds between 250 and 8000 Hz participated in this study. They were tested on their executive function, language, processing speed, working memory, and episodic memory components of cognitive testing and tests for temporal fine structure and spectrotemporal sensitivity for auditory processing testing. Results: No significant correlation was found between the cognitive tests and the tests for basic auditory processing in young adults. Conclusions: These findings present contrast to the existing findings in children and older adults where a stronger correlation between cognitive abilities and auditory processing has been found. The current findings suggest that testing for cognitive abilities may not be needed when testing for basic auditory processing in young adults.