Auditec Auditory Test Santiago APD Battery

The Santiago APD Battery© includes the following Spanish language tests:

Spanish Dichotic Digits
Spanish Filtered Speech
Spanish Binaural Fusion
Spanish Speech in Noise (at +10 dB and 0 dB signal-to-noise ratios)

The Santiago APD Battery (SAPD) is a set of four tests that assess (central) auditory processing (AP) in native Spanish-speaking adults. SAPD was developed by Adrian Fuente, Ph.D. of the Audiology Lab School of Speech and Hearing Sciences Medical Faculty, University of Chile. Since auditory processing includes various auditory abilities, different tests should be carried out to assess AP.  Some of these tests utilize verbal stimuli while others do not. For those auditory abilities that require verbal material to be assessed, e.g., dichotic listening, auditory performance in competing acoustic signals and auditory performance with degraded acoustic materials, tests with verbal stimuli in the language of the patient must be used. The SAPD battery was created because of this need. The aim of these tests is to assess some of the aspects of AP in Spanish-speaking adult patients suspected to have APD and/or with hearing complaints other than those associated with reduced hearing thresholds.

Each of the tests aims to assess different aspects of central auditory processing.

• Speech-in-noise requires recognition of monosyllable in the presence of white noise, according to ASHA (1996) it fits the low redundancy monaural speech category.
• Filtered Speech requires recognition of monosyllables that have been low pass filtered, a low redundancy category.
• Binaural fusion requires recognition of monosyllables whose low frequency spectrum is presented to one ear and high frequency spectrum simultaneously to the other ear, this test is in the binaural interaction category.
• Dichotic digits requires the patient to repeat two pairs of digits which are presented simultaneously to both ears, it is in the dichotic speech category.
• Auditec recommends buying the Santiago APD Battery as a full set. However, Auditec sells the tests individually as well for those with budget restraints.  Normative data was derived from a population of native Spanish speaking persons living in Chile.  As in any language, there are differences in dialect and one needs to verify these data on the local population.

The Santiago APD Battery includes a) audio recording, and b) manual and score forms as printable pdf files on CDRom. The extensive manual is provided in both Spanish and English. It includes administration, scoring, and interpretation information. Normative data is included for adults only. It can be assumed children over the age of 12 will do as well (or nearly as well) as adults.