Keywords: Auditory discrimination, speech intelligibility, hearing loss, central hearing

Abstract: The audilory tests designated to differentiate peripheral diseases normally are not appropriate for evaluation of central diseases. The central problems show normal or almost normal threshold and contralateral symptoms. The present study evaluated the central and peripheral audition of mil subjects with temporal lobe lesions, using ordinary audiometric tests, central auditory tests (SSI - Synthetic Sentences Intelligibility) and evaluations of communication. Despite of few complaints of central auditory system lesions among the subjects, there was a high incidence of signals related to auditory tests and communication (e. g. aphagia). The performance in the speech intelligibility test using short phrases was worse in the ear contralateral to the lesion, showing alterations in auditory central pathways even when the monosyllabic discrimination and other audiometric tests were normal. Therefore, a test that uses phrases can be an important mean for better evaluation of speech intelligibility and is of simple interpretation, better than other discrimination tests lo test the central auditory pathways in subjects with temporal lobe pathologies, offering also information about the side of the lesions.