This study investigates the role of lexical cues for speech recognition in noise across adults and children (5-10 years old). Target stimuli consists of phonetically balanced CVC and CVCCVC words and nonwords. Speech and speech-shaped noise (SSN) were separately divided into 30 contiguous 1-equivalent rectangular bands. Fifteen bands of speech were mixed with SSN bands to create four listening conditions: interleaved speech and noise, overlapped speech and noise, broadband noise and speech, and speech in quiet. To roughly equate performance between groups, speech and noise were presented at 0 dB SNR for adults and + 5 dB SNR for children. Anticipated results are that adults will achieve masking release when noise is interleaved with speech due to their ability to isolate frequency regions of clear speech. Children in this age range, however, may not have acquired this adult-like listening strategy. Analysis will be completed for recognition performance for words and nonwords at the whole word and consonant level. This analysis will help determine the extent that adults and children rely on lexical cues across noise conditions of varying spectral regions. Overall, these results may contribute to our understanding of how listening strategies for speech in noise develops in children.