Development of the mandarin hearing in noise test for children

Abstract

Objectives: To develop a Mandarin version of the Hearing in Noise Test for Children (MHINT-C) and examine the maturational effects on sentence recognition.

Design: Sentences suitable for evaluating children aged 6–18 years were selected from the adult MHINT to form 12 lists of 10 MHINT-C sentences (Study 1). List equivalence, inter-list reliability, response variability, and maturational effects on sentence recognition were examined using the MHINT-C (Study 2).

Study sample: A total of 246 children aged 6.1–17.11 years were included. Six children participated in Study 1; the rest were included in Study 2. To compare these results with adults, 20 native Mandarin-speaking adults aged 18 or above were included in Study 2.

Results: MHINT-C list equivalency, inter-list reliability, and response variability were similar to those of the adult MHINT and the Cantonese HINT for children. Sentence recognition in children reached adult-like performance around age 8 in quiet and at ages 15 and 14 in front and side noise conditions, respectively.

Conclusions: The MHINT-C can reliably measure sentence recognition in quiet and noise in Mandarin-speaking children. Age-specific correction factors were established.

Keywords:

• Pediatric: noise: speech perception: behavioral measures

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the children that participated in this study and staff at the Key Laboratory of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, Capital Medical University, Beijing for the cooperation and assistance in data collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by RGC Competitive Earmarked Research Grant Awards number HKU 7689/05 and 17605118, Hong Kong and the Research Support Scheme 2018/2019 of the Department of Special Education and Counselling at the Education University of Hong Kong.