Abstract
Normal-hearing adults can isolate frequency regions containing clean speech from surrounding regions containing noise. However, children have been shown to integrate information over a large number of auditory filters, and so they may not be able to isolate frequency regions as well. To assess children’s level of auditory filter independence, words were filtered into 30 contiguous 1-ERB-width bands. Speech was presented in every other band, for a total of 15 speech bands. Speech-shaped noise was then added to: all 30 contiguous bands, the 15 bands not containing speech (OFF), or the 15 bands containing speech (ON). Three age groups were tested: 10 adults, 9 older children (6–7 yr old), and 9 younger children (5 yr old). Consistent with previous findings involving consonant recognition, adults displayed large performance differences between off- and on-frequency noise (OFF vs. ON). The 6- to 7-yr-old group performed similarly to adults. In contrast, the 5-yr-old group displayed equivalent performance in the OFF and ON conditions. This indicates that, for these younger children, even noise that was mostly non-overlapping in frequency interfered with speech recognition as much as noise that was on frequency. [Work supported by NIH.]
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