SSW test in school children aged between 7 and 10 from two dissimilar socioeconomic cultural backgrounds

• Main Authors: Becker, Karine Thaís, Costa, Maristela Julio, Lessa, Alexandre Hundertmarck, Rossi, Angela Garcia
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Thieme Revinter Publicações Ltda. 2011-07-01
• Series: International Archives of Otorhinolaryngology
• Subjects: hearing; socioeconomic factors; child.
• Online Access: http://www.internationalarchivesent.org/conteudo/acervo_eng.asp?id=788

Introduction: Hearing comprises a lot more than just a peripheral sensitivity. To interpret such sounds, the participation of wide-ranging hearing abilities is necessary. It is known that a motivating environment plays a key role to develop these abilities. Objective: study the hearing abilities evaluated by the Staggered Spondaic Word test - SSW - in school children aged between 7 and 10 from dissimilar socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. Method: A prospective, clinical and watching study. 51 children participated in this study and were divided into two groups in accordance with their socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. Accordingly, Group 1 - G1 - (medium-high class) was comprised of 23 children and Group 2 - G2 - (medium-low class) had 28 children. SSW test was performed by analyzing both quantitative features: competitive right (CR) and competitive left (CL) conditions and the total of right answers in the test, and qualitative features: order effect (OE), hearing effect (HE), inversions and A-type standard. Results: Quantitative features: a statistically significant difference was found between the studied groups regarding the total of right answers in the test, but not in relation to CR and CL. Qualitative features: a statistically significant difference was noticed for the OE only. Although the statistical analysis has not found a significant difference for all the studied variants, it was possible to observe that G1 had higher results for all of them. Conclusion: the hearing abilities evaluated by the SSW test in school children aged between 7 and 10 showed higher scores in children with a medium-high socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds in comparison with those of medium-low socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds.