Comparative assessment outcome of the cognitive and developmental traits in adults with listening difficulties

Objective: This study was designed to determine the cognitive ability and developmental disorder traits in adults with listening difficulties (LiD) who show difficulties in comprehending verbal information in noisy environments despite having normal hearing. Methods: Thirty adults who complained of LiD during their activities of daily living volunteered to participate. We conducted memory and attention assessments using auditory and visual tasks. Moreover, we evaluated the developmental characteristics of the participants psychologically using questionnaires for autism-spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Results: The results of the auditory and verbal tasks were lower than that of visual tasks and that some participants showed lower scores on cognitive tests. Approximately 26.7% of the participants had ASD, whereas 16.7% had ADHD, and it showed a higher proportion of ASD or ADHD in participants with LiD. The outcomes of the cognitive and developmental assessment scores were not significantly correlated with the participants' personal factors. Conclusion: These findings imply that adults with LiD may also have cognitive problems and some of them showed developmental traits. It is needed to consider the cognitive and developmental characteristics of adults with LiD during evaluation in practice through hearing and listening tests along with cognitive assessments.