Slope analysis of Auditory Brainstem Responses in children at risk of central auditory processing disorders

The method of slope vectors was used to quantify Auditory Brainstem Respons es (ABR) obtained from nine normal children and nine children at risk for c entral auditory processing disorders (CAPD) with language impairment, for m onaural and binaural stimulation conditions. Slopes thus obtained were subj ected to K-Means Cluster Analysis. Distinction between the two groups was o btained only for binaural stimulation conditions, wherein all normal childr en were grouped under cluster 1 with higher slope values and 6 out of 9 CAP D children were grouped under cluster 2 with lower slopes. The results sugg est that there may be several subcategories among children who are found to be at risk for CAPD. One of the subcategories may comprise children who ex hibit poor ABR morphology, especially during binaural stimulation condition s, which could be due to binaural interference.