Developmental Effects in Children's Ability to Benefit From F0 Differences Between Target and Masker Speech.
Mary M Flaherty, Emily Buss, Lori J Leibold
PMID 30334835WHAT IT FOUND
Voice-pitch differences helped adults and 13- to 15-year-olds separate target words from competing speech, but 5- to 7-year-olds gained little.
A 9-semitone shift gave adults 10.8 dB and 13- to 15-year-olds 8.7 dB benefit, but 5- to 7-year-olds only 2.1 dB.
Key findings
01When target pitch was unchanged, 5- to 7-year-olds needed a mean 3.5 dB SNR and adults a mean -3.8 dB SNR to recognize words in two-talker speech.
02A 9-semitone target pitch shift gave adults 10.8 dB and 13- to 15-year-olds 8.7 dB masking release, but 5- to 7-year-olds only 2.1 dB.
03Pitch-discrimination thresholds improved with age, but discrimination ability did not play a pivotal role in the benefit from pitch shifts.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The stimuli used isolated words and a continuous two-talker masker made from the same male talker, so this is a controlled lab test rather than natural conversation. Changing only pitch removed other voice differences, so the result may not apply to real male versus female talkers. The pitch-discrimination task used a different talker and a different frequency range from the word-recognition task. The association between pitch discrimination and masking release depended on a single child with poor performance on both tasks. All listeners had normal hearing and were native English speakers, so the findings may not apply to children with hearing loss or non-native speakers.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The article is listed as supported by NIH extramural research.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that changing a talker's pitch will help young children understand speech in noise. The benefit was small for 5- to 7-year-olds in this controlled word task, and natural talker differences include more than pitch.