OBJECTIVE: To study the audiologic findings and compare the data of students with and without learning disabilities. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study and quantitative and qualitative analysis was performed. A this study comprised a total of 30 students of both sexes, 15 with learning disorders (study group) and 15 without learning problems (control group), aged between 7-14 years (mean age, 10 years).These students underwent clinical assessment at a clinic of a public university in São Paulo. The inclusion criteria were pure tone audiometry and speech audiometry within normal limits. Procedures such as otoacoustic emissions (OAE), auditory brain stem response (ABR), and long latency auditory evoked potentials (LLAEP) were performed in an acoustically treated room, using a Biologic's Evoked Potential System (EP). The results were analyzed with the t-test performed using statistical software. Results and Discussions: Otoacoustic emissions and ABR latencies were observed. The interamplitudes were within the normal range for both the groups. However, by using LLAEP, increased latency was observed in the left ear of the patients in the study group as compared to the control group, indicating changed basic auditory processing deficits in the hearing of this population. CONCLUSIONS: Based on the results obtained from this study, we conclude that LLAEP was the only test that aids in the differentiation of students with learning disorders from those without. This will aid in the evaluation and diagnosis as well as targeting and therapeutic monitoring of this population. However, further studies need to be conducted using linguistic stimuli to assess the potential.
