The Relationship of Auditory Perception and Reading

Abstract

Many children struggle to learn to read despite normal intellectual potential and good performance on auditory perception tests. This study compares the difference in performance on auditory perception tasks between successful and unsuccessful 3rd and 4th grade readers with comparable intelligence. Subjects consisted of twenty-two 3rd and 4th grade students in a rural school district in central New York. These students were divided into two groups of eleven, with one group classified as “successful readers” and the other classified as “unsuccessful readers”. Pairs from each of the groups were matched by Otis-Lenon Mental Ability intelligence test scores, with participants from both groups falling into an intelligence range of 89-115. All subjects were given the Gates-MacGinitie reading test and six auditory perception tests (Auditory Discrimination test, Auditory Memory Span test, two Detroit tests of learning aptitude, Spencer Sentence Memory test, and Auditory Sequential Memory test). Data was then analyzed using one-tailed t-tests, Pearson product-moment correlation, and visual inspection. The researcher found that unsuccessful readers had higher auditory discrimination, however the differences between the two groups were not significant with the exception of tests examining the auditory memory of words. Results indicate that there is no correlation between auditory discrimination and reading achievement, though it is possible that there is a correlation between auditory memory and reading achievement. Implications for further research include gathering a larger subject pool, performing this study on older subjects, performing longitudinal studies following students’ auditory perceptual abilities and reaching achievement, and performing this study using different methods for testing auditory discrimination.