Functional brain alterations following mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss in children.

Auditory deprivation in the form of deafness during development leads to lasting changes in central auditory system function. However, less is known about the effects of mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss (MMHL) during development. Here, we used a longitudinal design to examine late auditory evoked responses and mismatch responses to nonspeech and speech sounds for children with MMHL. At Time 1, younger children with MMHL (8-12 years; n = 23) showed age-appropriate mismatch negativities (MMNs) to sounds, but older children (12-16 years; n = 23) did not. Six years later, we re-tested a subset of the younger (now older) children with MMHL (n = 13). Children who had shown significant MMNs at Time 1 showed MMNs that were reduced and, for nonspeech, absent at Time 2. Our findings demonstrate that even a mild-to-moderate hearing loss during early-to-mid childhood can lead to changes in the neural processing of sounds in late childhood/adolescence

Impaired frequency selectivity and sensitivity to temporal fine structure, but not envelope cues, in children with mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss.

Psychophysical thresholds were measured for 8-16 year-old children with mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss (MMHL; N = 46) on a battery of auditory processing tasks that included measures designed to be dependent upon frequency selectivity and sensitivity to temporal fine structure (TFS) or envelope cues. Children with MMHL who wore hearing aids were tested in both unaided and aided conditions, and all were compared to a group of normally hearing (NH) age-matched controls. Children with MMHL performed more poorly than NH controls on tasks considered to be dependent upon frequency selectivity, sensitivity to TFS, and speech discrimination (/bɑ/-/dɑ/), but not on tasks measuring sensitivity to envelope cues. Auditory processing deficits remained regardless of age, were observed in both unaided and aided conditions, and could not be attributed to differences in nonverbal IQ or attention between groups. However, better auditory processing in children with MMHL was predicted by better audiometric thresholds and, for aided tasks only, higher levels of maternal education. These results suggest that, as for adults with MMHL, children with MMHL may show deficits in frequency selectivity and sensitivity to TFS, but sensitivity to the envelope may remain intact.Economic and Social Research Council First Grants Award (RES-061-25- 0440) and Medical Research Council Senior Fellowship in Hearing Research (MR/S002464/1) awarded to L.F.H

Development of auditory scene analysis: a mini-review

Most auditory environments contain multiple sound waves that are mixed before reaching the ears. In such situations, listeners must disentangle individual sounds from the mixture, performing the auditory scene analysis. Analyzing complex auditory scenes relies on listeners ability to segregate acoustic events into different streams, and to selectively attend to the stream of interest. Both segregation and selective attention are known to be challenging for adults with normal hearing, and seem to be even more difficult for children. Here, we review the recent literature on the development of auditory scene analysis, presenting behavioral and neurophysiological results. In short, cognitive and neural mechanisms supporting stream segregation are functional from birth but keep developing until adolescence. Similarly, from 6 months of age, infants can orient their attention toward a target in the presence of distractors. However, selective auditory attention in the presence of interfering streams only reaches maturity in late childhood at the earliest. Methodological limitations are discussed, and a new paradigm is proposed to clarify the relationship between auditory scene analysis and speech perception in noise throughout development

Speech perception & reading ability: What Has Been Learned from Studies of Categorical Perception, Nonword Repetition, and Speech in Noise?

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Speech perception and reading ability: What has been learned from studies of categorical perception, nonword repetition, and speech in noise?

This chapter examines whether problems encoding speech may be a basis for the phonological weaknesses documented for struggling readers. Research conducted to explore this question primarily has used three measures of speech perception: categorical perception, nonword repetition, and speech-in-noise. Evidence from each of these measures is reviewed and critiqued. For categorical perception, problems with the traditional paradigm are identified, but a newer application of this measure focusing on developmental changes in speech perception looks promising. Nonword repetition, though interesting, entails many levels of processing and shows influences from vocabulary knowledge, making it difficult to isolate perceptual processes. Finally, the speech-in-noise procedure has yielded noteworthy results indicating that the locus of speech perception is central rather than peripheral. Further, the magnitude of unique variance accounted for by speech-in-noise perception points to the merit of continuing to use this task to explore bases of individual differences in reading acumen.SCOPUS: ch.binfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Development of auditory tracking and speech perception in noise

In noisy surroundings, the auditory system must parse the auditory mixture reaching the ears to selectively focus on the relevant signal while ignoring the noise. In fact, in the presence of a similar-sounding interference, adults track a target stream over time by using a moving locus of attention. In spite of their functionally mature auditory system, school-age children’s perception of speech in noise remains poorer than adults’. The main aim of this study was to better understand the mechanisms underlying this protracted development. In particular, we focused on auditory tracking of voice streams, and its relationship to speech perception in noise throughout development. Our results indicate that tracking a synthetic target in the presence of a similar-sounding interference follows a protracted development, only starting to improve at adolescence. Speech perception in noise improved from childhood to adulthood. Irrespective of their age, listeners’ tracking performance significantly predicts their intelligibility in noise. These results suggest that the slow maturation of speech perception in noise might be partly attributed to the protracted development of auditory scene analysis until late adolescence

Context-dependent perception of speech in noisy backgrounds

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Contribution and interaction of central and peripheral processes involved in speech perception in noise in dyslexic children: PhD Project

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Respective influence of central and peripheral processes involved in speech in noise perception in dyslexic children

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The effect of spatial separation on informational masking: Presentation of an original dichotic paradigm

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