Abstract
Due to the recent pandemic event related to COVID-19, many countries are mandating the use of face masks to reduce the spread of the virus. Unfortunately, those masks can have a detrimental effect on speech communication, particularly for vulnerable listeners like children with hearing loss. This work investigates which type of face mask yields the highest level of speech intelligibility for children with cochlear implants. Fourteen children with cochlear implants aged 7–15 years have been involved, together with a control group of six normal-hearing children. Online speech intelligibility tests (simplified Italian matrix sentence test) were performed testing different masks at different signal to noise ratios. The listening difficulty was also evaluated on a 5-points scale. The results of this study showed which type of face masks are recommended to maximize intelligibility for children with cochlear implants.
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