Training speech-in-noise perception in mainstream school children.

Area of Science:

• Auditory Neuroscience
• Speech Perception
• Pediatric Audiology

Background:

• Auditory training is used for children with hearing, listening, or language difficulties.
• Previous auditory training research focused on complex stimuli (words/sentences) to improve speech-in-noise perception.
• Engagement with training stimuli may be more critical than stimulus complexity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if simpler auditory training stimuli can enhance sentence-in-noise perception in children.
• To compare the effectiveness of pure-tone frequency discrimination, frequency discrimination in noise, and word-in-noise training.
• To assess the transfer of training effects to different auditory tasks.

Main Methods:

• 41 typically developing, normal-hearing children (8-10 years) were divided into three training groups and one control group.
• Training involved 12 sessions over 4 weeks focusing on pure-tone frequency discrimination (FD), FD in modulated noise (FDN), or words in modulated noise (WN).
• Pre- and post-training assessments included sentence perception in modulated (SMN) and unmodulated (SUN) noise.

Main Results:

• All training groups showed significant improvements in their trained tasks.
• Positive transfer of training was observed between FDN training and FD, WN, and SMN testing.
• WN training also showed transfer to SMN testing, while FD and FDN training led to performance suppression on the SUN test.

Conclusions:

• Transfer of training is more likely when training tasks share stimulus dimensions with outcome measures.
• Outcome-specific auditory training materials may be more effective for improving specific auditory skills.
• Simpler auditory training stimuli, when appropriately chosen, can lead to improvements in speech-in-noise perception.