Effect of Age and Speech Perception at Different Signal-to-Noise Ratios Among Children With Normal Hearing

Children constantly gain auditory experiences that promote speech and language development. Therefore, evaluating the auditory capacities of children in noisy environments is imperative. In this study, we sought to evaluate the speech perception abilities of children with normal hearing in noisy environments.

A cross-sectional study design was employed, enrolling 162 Tamil-speaking children aged 3-6 years with normal hearing. These children were further categorized into three groups based on age range: group 1 (3;0-3;11 years), group 2 (4;0-4;11 years), and group 3 (5;0-5;11 years). The two-talker babble was recorded and presented under four conditions: silence, 0 dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), +10 dB SNR, and +20 dB SNR. Scoring was carried out and recorded appropriately.

A significant difference (p<0.05) in performance was observed at 0 dB SNR and +10 dB SNR compared to that in the other two presentation conditions. Among all the age groups assessed, performance was poorer in those exposed to 0 dB SNR, whereas near-perfect scores were recorded among those exposed to 20 dB SNR.

Our findings provide a basis for comparing the performance of children utilizing hearing devices in noisy environments. This normative data can also serve as a benchmark for evaluating the performance of children with hearing loss fitted with hearing devices.