Remote Microphones Support Speech Recognition in Noise and Reverberation for Children With a Language Disorder.
Katherine R Gordon, Dawna Lewis, Stephanie Lowry and 3 others
PMID 39723922WHAT IT FOUND
Children with language disorders struggled more than peers to recognize speech in noise.
A remote microphone system significantly improved their speech recognition in both noise and reverberation. However, this is a preliminary study of nine children, so it does not yet justify purchasing devices for clinical use.
Key findings
01Children with language disorders had poorer sentence recognition in speech-shaped noise compared to typically developing peers.
02Using a remote microphone system improved sentence recognition for children with language disorders in both noise and noise plus reverberation conditions.
03The authors explicitly state these results should not be interpreted as a clinical recommendation to purchase remote microphones.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample size was very small (nine children with LD), limiting the generalizability of the findings. The study measured sentence recognition (repeating words), not comprehension or learning from the speech. The listening conditions were simulated in a laboratory setting, which may not fully reflect complex classroom environments. Four of the nine children in the LD group did not meet the strict cut-score criteria for Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) on the main language test used, leading the authors to use the broader term 'Language Disorder'.
Declared interests
Funding was provided by the National Institutes of Health. Phonak (a division of Sonova AG) provided the remote microphone devices used in the study. One author is a member of the Phonak Pediatric Advisory Board. Another author is a member of a separate software/consulting company not involved in this study.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the improved speech recognition scores as evidence that remote microphones will improve academic learning or language development in children with language disorders. The study only measured the ability to repeat sentences in a lab, and the authors explicitly state this is not a clinical recommendation to purchase devices.