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Does the speaker's voice quality influence children's performance on a language comprehension test?
Viveka Lyberg-Åhlander1, Magnus Haake, Jonas Brännström
1Logopedics, Phoniatrics and Audiology, Clinical Sciences, Lund University , Lund , Sweden.
International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology
|April 15, 2014
Summary
Children
Area of Science:
- Child language acquisition and processing.
- Auditory perception and cognitive load.
- Speech-language pathology and assessment.
Background:
- Limited research exists on how children's voice perception affects language comprehension.
- Understanding factors influencing language test performance is crucial for accurate assessment.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore the impact of examiner voice quality on children's language comprehension.
- To investigate the relationship between voice quality, cognitive function, and performance on the Test for Reception of Grammar (TROG-2).
Main Methods:
- Eighty-six 8-year-old children with typical language development participated.
- Children completed a digital version of the TROG-2 using either a typical or a simulated dysphonic female voice recording.
- Cognitive functioning was assessed using two measures.
Main Results:
- Executive functioning was significantly associated with language comprehension.
- Children exposed to the dysphonic voice scored lower on complex sentences and exhibited more self-corrections on simpler sentences.
- A simulated dysphonic voice negatively impacted performance on specific sentence structures.
Conclusions:
- A dysphonic voice may divert cognitive resources from language processing to voice signal analysis, hindering comprehension.
- These findings highlight the importance of voice quality in standardized language assessments for children.
- Consideration of speaker voice characteristics is recommended in clinical and research settings.
Keywords:
Voice perceptionchildrencognitive capacitylanguage comprehensionoccupational voicevoice qualityworking memoryMore Related Videos
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