Infant speech-sound discrimination in noise

Abstract

Infant ability to discriminate a speech-sound pair in noise was assessed using the visual reinforcement infant speech discrimination procedure. Sixteen infants between 7 and 12 months were tested on the /ba-ga/ contrast at four S/N's (− 8, 0, 8, and 16 dB). A group of young-adult control subjects was tested also at four S/N's (− 12, − 8, − 4, and 0 dB). The noise was continuously present at 48 dB SPL. Group psychometric functions revealed that infants required a more favorable S/N than adults to achieve given levels of performance. The adult subjects and 14 of the 16 infants were also tested using a discrimination-threshold procedure in which the stimulus intensity was varied adaptively (1-up/1-down). The adaptive discrimination procedure provided, for both groups, estimates of performance that are in good agreement with those from the performance versus S/N functions that were developed using the more time-consuming method of trial blocks at fixed S/N's. [Work supported by DRF and NIH POI NS16337.]

Age-Related Benefits of Digital Noise Reduction for Short-Term Word Learning in Children With Hearing Loss

“…Another possible contributor to the age-related benefits of DNR is that the older children with HL were better able to perceive the nonsense words in noise. A number of studies have shown that the speech perception of children with NH improves in noise with age (Elliott, 1979;Fallon, Trehub, & Schneider, 2002;Nozza, Rossman, Bond, & Miller, 1990;Scollie, 2008;Wilson, Farmer, Gandhi, Shelburne, & Weaver, 2010). Although the relation between age and speech perception in noise is less well defined for children with HL (Scollie, 2008;Stelmachowicz et al, 2007), age appears to be a strong predictor of performance (Gravel et al, 1999;Stelmachowicz, Pittman, Hoover, & Lewis, 2001).…”

Candidacy and Device Options: Personal Amplification Systems for School-Aged Children

“…Children with hearing loss experience substantial difficulty with speech perception in noisy environments. 45 Aside from remote microphone technology, directional microphones are the most effective approach at improving speech recognition in noise for hearing-aid users. Although a handful of studies show that children can benefit from the use of directional hearing aids, [46][47][48] there is still not universal agreement that directional microphones should be used for children.…”

The Auditory Consequences of Otitis Media with Effusion: The Audiogram and Beyond

“…Other higher order auditory processes have been demonstrated in young infants including: (1) signal detection in background noise (Nozza & Wilson, 1984;Nozza et al, 1990), (2) the precedence effect (use of binaural leading and lagging temporal cues; Clifton, 1993), (3) binaural release from masking (Nozza, Wagner, & Crandell, 1988), (4) speech-sound discrimination (Kuhl, 1985), (5) perceptual constancy (the ability to ignore irrelevant auditory cues; Kuhl, 1985), and (6) binaural fusion (Diefendorf, 1981). Among the most compelling recent data supporting the existence of early and active auditory processing are those of Kuhl and her colleagues (Kuhl et al, 1992).…”