Infants and children are at a disadvantage relative to adults when listening to speech in the presence of competing sounds. These developmental effects can be striking when the competing sounds are also speech, and are substantially larger for children with hearing loss than children with normal hearing. Despite growing awareness that infants and children spend the majority of their days in multi-talker environments, little is currently known about the specific factors that limit children's hearing in competing speech. In addition, it is unclear how hearing loss impacts children's ability to hear out a target talker when multiple people are speaking at the same time. The long-term goal of this project is to understand the maturation of hearing in complex acoustic environments that contain multiple sources of competing sounds. The proposed experiments will isolate factors that limit children's abilities to separate target from competing speech and will evaluate the extent to which speech-on-speech recognition improves for children with hearing loss when acoustic cues thought to promote sound segregation are provided.
Aim 1 will evaluate the extent to which children capitalize on glimpses of improved signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), associated with masker fluctuations, to recognize target speech in a speech masker. It is hypothesized that children will benefit less from modulation than adults due to their reduced auditory experience.
Aim 2 will evaluate the relative impact of listener factors such as age and degree of hearing loss on the development of speech-on-speech masking for children with congenital hearing loss. It is hypothesized that variable and/or degraded auditory experience as a result of hearing loss interferes with the maturation of perceptual processing abilities, such as those related to the segregation of target from background speech.
Aim 3 will evaluate the practical consequences of enhancing acoustic cues thought to aid in the segregation of sounds for children with hearing loss. It is hypothesized that children with hearing loss benefit from the provision of these acoustic cues, provided that high-quality access is supported by their sensory system and hearing aids. The results of the proposed studies are expected to provide fundamental knowledge regarding the development of speech perception under adverse listening conditions from infancy to adulthood. Completion of the proposed experiments may also generate feasible intervention strategies that improve receptive communication outcomes for children with hearing loss.

Public Health Relevance

The proposed research is relevant to public health because it is focused on understanding how hearing develops in real-world environments for children with normal hearing and with hearing loss. The results of the proposed experiments will contribute to our basic understanding of the factors that limit how well infants, preschoolers and school-age children perceive speech in adverse listening conditions that contain multiple sources of competing sounds. In addition, this work is expected to generate practical intervention options that may improve speech perception in competing speech for children with hearing loss.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01DC011038-08
Application #
9304995
Study Section
Auditory System Study Section (AUD)
Program Officer
King, Kelly Anne
Project Start
2011-03-01
Project End
2021-06-30
Budget Start
2017-07-01
Budget End
2018-06-30
Support Year
8
Fiscal Year
2017
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Father Flanagan's Boys' Home
Department
Type
DUNS #
073136806
City
Boys Town
State
NE
Country
United States
Zip Code
68010
Porter, Heather L; Spitzer, Emily R; Buss, Emily et al. (2018) Forward and Backward Masking of Consonants in School-Age Children and Adults. J Speech Lang Hear Res 61:1807-1814
Leibold, Lori J; Buss, Emily; Calandruccio, Lauren (2018) Developmental Effects in Masking Release for Speech-in-Speech Perception Due to a Target/Masker Sex Mismatch. Ear Hear 39:935-945
Flaherty, Mary M; Buss, Emily; Leibold, Lori J (2018) Developmental Effects in Children's Ability to Benefit From F0 Differences Between Target and Masker Speech. Ear Hear :
Buss, Emily; Leibold, Lori J; Porter, Heather L et al. (2017) Speech recognition in one- and two-talker maskers in school-age children and adults: Development of perceptual masking and glimpsing. J Acoust Soc Am 141:2650
Corbin, Nicole E; Buss, Emily; Leibold, Lori J (2017) Spatial Release From Masking in Children: Effects of Simulated Unilateral Hearing Loss. Ear Hear 38:223-235
Leibold, Lori J (2017) Speech Perception in Complex Acoustic Environments: Developmental Effects. J Speech Lang Hear Res 60:3001-3008
Bonino, Angela Yarnell; Leibold, Lori J (2017) Behavioral Assessment of Hearing in 2 to 4 Year-old Children: A Two-interval, Observer-based Procedure Using Conditioned Play-based Responses. J Vis Exp :
Corbin, Nicole E; Bonino, Angela Yarnell; Buss, Emily et al. (2016) Development of Open-Set Word Recognition in Children: Speech-Shaped Noise and Two-Talker Speech Maskers. Ear Hear 37:55-63
Leibold, Lori J; Buss, Emily (2016) Factors responsible for remote-frequency masking in children and adults. J Acoust Soc Am 140:4367
Calandruccio, Lauren; Leibold, Lori J; Buss, Emily (2016) Linguistic Masking Release in School-Age Children and Adults. Am J Audiol 25:34-40

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