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Spatial Hearing in Children With and Without Hearing Loss: Where and What the Speech Is Matters for Local Speech Intelligibility.

Purpose: This study examined children's ability to perceive speech from multiple locations on the horizontal plane. Children with hearing loss were compared to normal-hearing peers while using amplification with and without advanced noise management. Method: Participants were 21 children with normal...

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Published in:American Journal of Audiology Vol. 33; no. 2; pp. 442 - 455
Main Authors: Pittman, Andrea L., Pastore, M. Torben
Format: research tables/charts Journal Article
Published: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Jun2024
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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      jtl: American Journal of Audiology
      issn: 10590889
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    pubinfo:
      dt: Jun2024
      vid: 33
      iid: 2
      pid: 42
      pub: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
      place: Rockville, Maryland
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        177689177
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        10.1044/2024_AJA-23-00250
        177689177
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      tig:
        atl: Spatial Hearing in Children With and Without Hearing Loss: Where and What the Speech Is Matters for Local Speech Intelligibility.
      aug:
        au:
          Pittman, Andrea L.
          Pastore, M. Torben
        affil: Department of Speech and Hearing Science, Arizona State University, Tempe
      sug:
        subj:
          Speech Perception Evaluation
          Hearing Evaluation
          Spatial Perception
          Hearing Disorders
          Human
          Peer Group
          Memory
          Noise Prevention and Control
          Hearing Aids
          Task Performance and Analysis
          Speech Intelligibility
          Signal Processing, Computer Assisted
          Brain Physiology
          Transducers
          Neuropsychological Tests
          Treatment Outcomes
          Male
          Female
          Child
          Adolescence
          Software
          Noise Evaluation
          Word Lists
          Repeated Measures
          Univariate Statistics
          Analysis of Variance
          Post Hoc Analysis
          Speech Acoustics
          Funding Source
          Child: 6-12 years
          Adolescent: 13-18 years
          Male
          Female
      ab: Purpose: This study examined children's ability to perceive speech from multiple locations on the horizontal plane. Children with hearing loss were compared to normal-hearing peers while using amplification with and without advanced noise management. Method: Participants were 21 children with normal hearing (9-15 years) and 12 children with moderate symmetrical hearing loss (11-15 years). Word recognition, nonword detection, and word recall were assessed. Stimuli were presented randomly from multiple discrete locations in multitalker noise. Children with hearing loss were fit with devices having separate omnidirectional and noise management programs. The noise management feature is designed to preserve audibility in noise by rapidly analyzing input from all locations and reducing the noise management when speech is detected from locations around the hearing aid user. Results: Significant effects of left/right and front/back lateralization occurred as well as effects of hearing loss and hearing aid noise management. Children with normal hearing experienced a left-side advantage for word recognition and a right-side advantage for nonword detection. Children with hearing loss demonstrated poorer performance overall on all tasks with better word recognition from the back, and word recall from the right, in the omnidirectional condition. With noise management, performance improved from the front compared to the back for all three tasks and from the right for word recognition and word recall. Conclusions: The shape of children's local speech intelligibility on the horizontal plane is not omnidirectional. It is task dependent and shaped further by hearing loss and hearing aid signal processing. Front/back shifts in children with hearing loss are consistent with the behavior of hearing aid noise management, while the right-side biases observed in both groups are consistent with the effects of specialized speech processing in the left hemisphere of the brain.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype:
        research
        tables/charts
        Journal Article
      ougenre: Article
    language: English
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