Sentence perception in noise

Abstract

Previous research has shown that normal children and older people have greater difficulty understanding sentences presented in a multitalker babble than do listeners in the 17–50 year age range. Recent work demonstrates that normally hearing children with speech‐production disorders and normally hearing learning‐disabled adults may demonstrate poorer speech perception than normal age mates. Since everyday listening situations often involve signal‐to‐noise levels comparable to the experimental levels, these data should be considered in design of school classrooms and home environments. [Supported, in part, by NSF, NIH, and BEH.]