Oosthuizen Ilze, Picou Erin M, Pottas Lidia, Myburgh Hermanus Carel, Swanepoel De Wet
Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, University of Pretoria, South Africa.
Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2020 Jun 22;63(6):1979-1989. doi: 10.1044/2020_JSLHR-19-00330. Epub 2020 Jun 1.
Purpose It is not clear if behavioral indices of listening effort are sensitive to changes in signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for young children (7-12 years old) from multilingual backgrounds. The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of SNR on listening effort in multilingual school-aged children (native English, nonnative English) as measured with a single- and a dual-task paradigm with low-linguistic speech stimuli (digits). The study also aimed to explore age effects on digit triplet recognition and response times (RTs). Method Sixty children with normal hearing participated, 30 per language group. Participants completed single and dual tasks in three SNRs (quiet, -10 dB, and -15 dB). Speech stimuli for both tasks were digit triplets. Verbal RTs were the listening effort measure during the single-task paradigm. A visual monitoring task was the secondary task during the dual-task paradigm. Results Significant effects of SNR on RTs were evident during both single- and dual-task paradigms. As expected, language background did not affect the pattern of RTs. The data also demonstrate a maturation effect for triplet recognition during both tasks and for RTs during the dual-task only. Conclusions Both single- and dual-task paradigms were sensitive to changes in SNR for school-aged children between 7 and 12 years of age. Language background (English as native language vs. English as nonnative language) had no significant effect on triplet recognition or RTs, demonstrating practical utility of low-linguistic stimuli for testing children from multilingual backgrounds.
目的 对于来自多语言背景的幼儿（7至12岁），听力努力的行为指标是否对信噪比（SNR）的变化敏感尚不清楚。本研究的目的是探讨信噪比（SNR）对多语言学龄儿童（以英语为母语、非英语为母语）听力努力的影响，采用单任务和双任务范式，使用低语言复杂度的语音刺激（数字）进行测量。该研究还旨在探讨年龄对数字三联体识别和反应时间（RTs）的影响。方法 60名听力正常的儿童参与研究，每个语言组30名。参与者在三种信噪比（安静、-10 dB和-15 dB）下完成单任务和双任务。两个任务的语音刺激均为数字三联体。在单任务范式中，言语反应时间是听力努力的测量指标。在双任务范式中，视觉监测任务是次要任务。结果 在单任务和双任务范式中，信噪比（SNR）对反应时间均有显著影响。正如预期的那样，语言背景并未影响反应时间的模式。数据还表明，在两个任务中数字三联体识别以及仅在双任务中的反应时间存在成熟效应。结论 单任务和双任务范式对7至12岁学龄儿童的信噪比（SNR）变化均敏感。语言背景（以英语为母语与非英语为母语）对数字三联体识别或反应时间没有显著影响，这表明低语言复杂度刺激对于测试来自多语言背景的儿童具有实际效用。
