Comparison of Effects of Auditory and Music Training of Blind or Visually Impaired Young People on Performance in Selected Auditory Tasks

E. Skrodzka, A. Furmann, E. Bogusz-Witczak and E. Hojan Institute of Acoustics, A. Mickiewicz University, Umultowska 85, 61-614 Poznań, Poland

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Performance of blind/visually impaired children and teenagers before and after the auditory training and the music training in some auditory tasks (pitch discrimination, pitch-timbre categorization, pitch memory, lateralization of a stationary sound of a drum, lateralization of one or two moving motor vehicles) is compared. In the auditory training, the subjects were actively involved, i.e. they had to answer questions related to presented sound material. The music training was based on passive listening to sounds presented according to the Tomatis method. The training (auditory or music) effectiveness was measured as a difference between results of a pre- and post-training verification test in which the subjects were asked to perform: the auditory tasks mentioned at the beginning. The persons who took part in the study were divided into two age groups: 7-12 year olds and 13-19 year olds. According to the results, the auditory training was beneficial for blind or visually impaired teenagers, especially in respect of lateralization tasks. For small children the auditory training was not as effective as for adolescents. However, it has been shown that the music training was generally beneficial for them, although none of the verification tasks was privileged.

DOI: 10.12693/APhysPolA.128.A-29 PACS numbers: 43.66.Yw, 43.66.Hg, 43.66.Jw, 43.66.Qp