Assessing speech perception in children with language difficulties: Effects of background noise and phonetic contrast

Abstract

Deficits in speech perception are reported for some children with language impairments. This deficit is more marked when listening against background noise. This study investigated the speech perception skills of young children with and without language difficulties. A speech discrimination task, using non-word minimal pairs in an XAB paradigm, was presented to 20 5–7-year-old children with language difficulties and 33 typically-developing (TD) children aged between 4– to 7-years. Stimuli were presented in quiet and in background noise (babble), and stimuli varied in phonetic contrasts, differing in either place of articulation or presence/absence of voicing. Children with language difficulties performed less well than TD children in all conditions. There was an interaction between group and noise condition, such that children with language difficulties were more affected by the presence of noise. Both groups of children made more errors with one voicing contrast /s z/ and there was some indication that children with language difficulties had proportionately greater difficulty with this contrast. Speech discrimination scores were significantly correlated with language scores for children with language difficulties. Issues in developing material for assessment of speech discrimination in children with LI are discussed.

Keywords::

• Language impairment
• assessment
• non-word discrimination

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to school staff who enabled this project and to pupils who participated. Thanks are also due to Dr Mike Coleman, University College London, who developed the software used, and Dr Patty Cowell, The University of Sheffield, for statistical advice. This work was supported by a grant from the Research Committee of the Faculty of Medicine, The University of Sheffield.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Appendix

Practice stimuli

Six pairs presented twice each and one pair (/‘fɒl - ‘gɒl/) presented three times in practice block.

Table

Catch trial stimuli

Differing on two or more features, each pair presented once across the three blocks in each condition.

Table

Test stimuli

Each pair presented four times across three blocks in each condition.

Table