This study aimed to investigate central auditory processing dysfunction in patients with stroke. Three patients who had suffered
strokes with confirmed auditory pathway involvement, participated. All subjects had normal hearing bilaterally, and were
right-handed. All subjects completed K-MMSE (Korean version of Mini-Mental State Exam) and K-WAB (Korean version-the
Western Aphasia Battery), and performed Korean Central Auditory Processing Assessment (CAPA-K) battery, including Frequency
Pattern test, Dichotic Digit test, Filtered Word test, Compressed Speech test, Speech in Noise test, and Binaural Fusion test. The
scores for the each test were evaluated by comparing the normative data in young adult population for the standardization of CAPA-K
battery. The results of the study revealed that all three subjects had difficulties in central auditory processing. S1 (male, 17 years, Rt.
middle cerebral artery infarction including Rt. insula and basal ganglia) showed poor performance in contralateral ear to the lesion in
all speech recognition tests. Contralateral ear suppression was also seen in dichotic testing. Furthermore, frequency pattern
recognition was poorer in the linguistic labeling condition than in the humming condition in both ears. S2 (female, 46 years, both
pontine infarction including lateral lemniscus and superior olivary complex) demonstrated difficulties through the entire tests whereas
S3 (male, 51 years, Lt. pontine infarction including lateral lemniscus) showed normal performance in speech recognition test and
monaural-low redundancy speech tests in both ears. Regardless of side of lesion, temporal processing difficulties in both ears were
found in patients associated with pontine infarction. In these cases, auditory dysfunction resulting from stroke varied with the location
and extent of auditory pathway infarction. Therefore, more cases are needed to identify the central auditory dysfunction in patients
with stroke.