Speech Recognition in Noise 5-Year-Old Normal-Hearing Children

Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate if Hagerman's 3-word-utterances in monaural or binaural noise are appropriate for testing 5-year-old children. Design: This test is a modification of Hagerman's 5-word-sentences, where the first two words are omitted in order to make it easier for children. The influence of three factors were evaluated; type of noise (slightly or fully modulated), noise presentation (monaural or binaural), and gender (male or female). Study sample: Twenty normal-hearing 5-year-old children. Results: The 5-year-old children could not take advantage of the short valleys in the modulated noise in the 3-word-utterances to the same extent as adults could in the original 5-word-sentences. A significant improvement was obtained with binaural noise compared to monaural noise (binaural masking level difference, BMLD) for both slightly and fully modulated noise. Boys showed significantly better results than girls. Conclusions: The children were able to complete this test without problems. The results may be used as preliminary reference material for 5-year-old children.