Who is Right?: A word identification in noise test for young children using minimal pair distracters

Vollständiger Abstract

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[Published version available here: https://pubs.asha.org/doi/abs/10.1044/2021_JSLHR-20-00658]. Many children have difficulties understanding speech. Reliable tools are needed to identify them in order to provide appropriate interventions. At present, there are relatively few assessments that test for subtle impairments in speech perception that have normative data from UK children. Here we present a new test, which evaluates children’s ability to identify target words in background noise by choosing between minimal pair alternatives that differ by a single articulatory phonetic feature. This new test of single word perception is (1) tailored to testing young children, (2) has minimal memory demands, (3) adapts to the child’s ability and (4) does not require reading or verbal output. Although designed for young children, it is also readily applicable in adults. Here, we show that speech in noise abilities in this particular task develop rapidly through childhood until they reach maturity at around ten years of age. We make this test freely available, with normative data for listeners aged 4-25 years old, and hope that it will be useful to researchers and clinicians in the assessment of speech perceptual abilities in children with hearing impairments, Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), Dyslexia and Auditory Processing Disorder (APD).