Children aged 6 to 12 years with intelligence and pure-tone hearing within the normal range (91 functioning academically within the middle 50% and having uneventful hearing health histories and 76 demonstrating learning disabilities) were evaluated with dichotic central auditory listening tasks. Auditory response patterns were established and analyzed for normal and learning disability-specific performance. Children with learning disability-specific performance. Children with learning disabilities performed more poorly than "normal" peers on verbal and nonverbal listening tasks, suggesting learning disabled children may be identified by auditory performance on dichotic listening skills.

Age Factors↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Extended high frequency hearing sensitivity. A normative threshold study in musicians.

Sixty members of the Minnesota Orchestra (aged 24 to 64 years) and 30 nonmusicians (aged 20 to 69 years) were evaluated for hearing sensitivity within the conventional audiometric range (0.25 to 8 kHz) and within the extended high frequency audiometric range (9 to 20 kHz). Threshold data were evaluated by age, sex, and musician-nonmusician categories for the respective frequencies, and data were compared to other studies. Musician hearing appeared no poorer than nonmusician hearing, suggesting no major hearing loss from musicians exposure to orchestral noise. Hearing acuity of the two groups was similar to some normal groups reported in the world literature but appeared poorer in comparison to some normal groups defined by a very restrictive definition of normal hearing. Issues relating to the definition of normal hearing are explored. A mathematical model descriptive of the extended high tone hearing sensitivity for musicians and non-musicians evaluated was calculated. The formula is presented from which typical age-specific extended high frequency thresholds may be calculated for the 90 subjects evaluated.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Statistical power in nursing research.

A power analysis was performed on 62 articles that were published in Nursing Research and Research in Nursing and Health during 1989. The analysis revealed that when effects were small, the mean power of the statistical tests being performed to test research hypotheses was .26, indicating a very high risk of committing a Type II error. When effects were moderate, the mean power increased to .71, which is still below the conventionally acceptable power of .80. Only when a study involved large effects was the power adequate (mean of .95). Of the 583 power estimates calculated, 53% were for small effects. These analyses indicate that a substantial number of published nursing studies, and presumably even more of unpublished studies, have insufficient power to detect real effects, primarily because the samples used are too small.

Nursing↗