Improving speech-in-noise recognition for children with hearing loss: potential effects of language abilities, binaural summation, and head shadow.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

This study examined speech recognition in noise for children with hearing loss, compared it to recognition for children with normal hearing, and examined mechanisms that might explain variance in children's abilities to recognize speech in noise.

Design

Word recognition was measured in two levels of noise, both when the speech and noise were co-located in front and when the noise came separately from one side. Four mechanisms were examined as factors possibly explaining variance: vocabulary knowledge, sensitivity to phonological structure, binaural summation, and head shadow.

Study sample

Participants were 113 eight-year-old children. Forty-eight had normal hearing (NH) and 65 had hearing loss: 18 with hearing aids (HAs), 19 with one cochlear implant (CI), a

SUBMITTER: Nittrouer S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3907590 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature