Some Neurocognitive Correlates of Noise-Vocoded Speech Perception in Children With Normal Hearing: A Replication and Extension of ).
Adrienne S Roman, David B Pisoni, William G Kronenberger and 1 others
PMID 28045787WHAT IT FOUND
Children with normal hearing who have better auditory attention and verbal short-term memory recognize spectrally degraded speech more accurately.
This suggests that cognitive skills, not just hearing, drive speech perception when the signal is poor.
Key findings
01Children with normal hearing recognized lexically easy words and words in sentences better than hard words or words in isolation.
02Auditory attention and talker discrimination skills were significantly correlated with the ability to recognize noise-vocoded words and sentences.
03Verbal short-term memory capacity, measured by digit span, was strongly correlated with recognizing noise-vocoded words in isolation.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study is correlational, so it cannot prove that cognitive skills cause better speech perception. The sample size was small (31 children), limiting the ability to detect small effects. The auditory attention tasks (NEPSY-2) were too easy for most children, leading to ceiling effects that weakened the correlation with speech scores. Multiple comparisons were not statistically corrected, increasing the risk of false positives. The participants were monolingual English speakers, so results may not generalize to bilingual children or those with different linguistic backgrounds.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that improving a child's hearing or memory directly causes better speech perception. This is a correlational study, so it shows that these skills are linked, but not that training one will fix the other.