Auditory behavior and auditory temporal resolution in children with sleep-disordered breathing.

OBJECTIVE: Intermittent hypoxia caused by obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) may lead to damage in brain areas associated to auditory processing. The aim of this study was to compare children with OSAS or primary snoring (PS) to children without sleep-disordered breathing with regard to their performance on the Gaps-in-Noise (GIN) test and the Scale of Auditory Behaviors (SAB) questionnaire.

METHODS: Thirty-seven children (6-12 years old) were submitted to sleep anamnesis and in-lab night-long polysomnography. Three groups were organized according to clinical criteria: OSAS group (13 children), PS group (13 children), and control group (11 children). They were submitted to the GIN test and parents answered SAB questionnaire. The Kruskal-Wallis statistical test was used to compare the groups; p < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

RESULTS: The OSAS group performed significantly worse than PS (p = 0.011) and Control (p = 0.029) groups on gap detection percentage, while PS and Control groups showed no significant differences. The three groups showed similar gap detection thresholds. Regarding SAB questionnaire, PS group had significantly worse scores when compared to Control (p = 0.011), but not to OSAS (p = 0.101) groups. No statistical difference between OSAS and Control groups were found.

CONCLUSION: Children with OSAS showed worse performance on GIN test in comparison to children with PS and children without sleep-disordered breathing. PS negatively affected auditory behavior in children. These findings suggest that sleep-disordered breathing may lead to auditory behavior impairment.