Auditory processing performance in blind people.

Unlabelled: Hearing has an important role in human development and social adaptation in blind people.

Objective: To evaluate the performance of temporal auditory processing in blind people; to characterize the temporal resolution ability; to characterize the temporal ordinance ability and to compare the performance of the study population in the applied tests.

Methods: Fifteen blind adults participated in this study. A cross-sectional study was undertaken; approval was obtained from the Pernambuco Catholic University Ethics Committee, no. 003/2008.

Results: Temporal auditory processing was excellent--the average composed threshold in the original RGDT version was 4. 98 ms; it was 50 ms for all frequencies in the expanded version. PPS and DPS results ranged from 95% to 100%. There were no quantitative differences in the comparison of tests; but oral reports suggested that the original RGDT original version was more difficult.

Conclusions: The study sample performed well in temporal auditory processing; it also performed well in temporal resolution and ordinance abilities.