Improving the classroom listening skills of children with Down syndrome by using sound-field amplification.

Many children with Down syndrome have fluctuating conductive hearing losses further reducing their speech, language and academic development. It is within the school environment where access to auditory information is crucial that many children with Down syndrome are especially disadvantaged. Conductive hearing impairment which is often fluctuating and undetected reduces the child's ability to extract the important information from the auditory signal. Unfortunately, the design and acoustics of the classroom leads to problems in extracting the speech signal through reduced speech intensity due to the increased distance of the student from the teacher in addition to masking from excessive background noise. One potential solution is the use of sound-field amplification which provides a uniform amplification to the teacher's voice through the use of a microphone and loudspeakers. This investigation examined the efficacy of sound-field amplification for 4 children with Down syndrome. Measures of speech perception were taken with and without the sound-field system and found that the children perceived significantly more speech in all conditions where the sound-field system was used (p < .0001). Importantly, listening performance with the sound-field system was not affected by reducing the signal-to-noise ratio through increasing the level of background noise. In summary, sound-field amplification provides improved access to the speech signal for children with Down syndrome and as a consequence leads to improved classroom success.