Effect of Simultaneous Bilingualism on Speech Intelligibility across Different Masker Types, Modalities, and Signal-to-Noise Ratios in School-Age Children.

Recognizing speech in adverse listening conditions is a significant cognitive, perceptual, and linguistic challenge, especially for children. Prior studies have yielded mixed results on the impact of bilingualism on speech perception in noise. Methodological variations across studies make it difficu...

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Main Authors: Rachel Reetzke, Boji Pak-Wing Lam, Zilong Xie, Li Sheng, Bharath Chandrasekaran
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2016-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC5148102?pdf=render
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author Rachel Reetzke
Boji Pak-Wing Lam
Zilong Xie
Li Sheng
Bharath Chandrasekaran
author_facet Rachel Reetzke
Boji Pak-Wing Lam
Zilong Xie
Li Sheng
Bharath Chandrasekaran
author_sort Rachel Reetzke
collection DOAJ
description Recognizing speech in adverse listening conditions is a significant cognitive, perceptual, and linguistic challenge, especially for children. Prior studies have yielded mixed results on the impact of bilingualism on speech perception in noise. Methodological variations across studies make it difficult to converge on a conclusion regarding the effect of bilingualism on speech-in-noise performance. Moreover, there is a dearth of speech-in-noise evidence for bilingual children who learn two languages simultaneously. The aim of the present study was to examine the extent to which various adverse listening conditions modulate differences in speech-in-noise performance between monolingual and simultaneous bilingual children. To that end, sentence recognition was assessed in twenty-four school-aged children (12 monolinguals; 12 simultaneous bilinguals, age of English acquisition ≤ 3 yrs.). We implemented a comprehensive speech-in-noise battery to examine recognition of English sentences across different modalities (audio-only, audiovisual), masker types (steady-state pink noise, two-talker babble), and a range of signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs; 0 to -16 dB). Results revealed no difference in performance between monolingual and simultaneous bilingual children across each combination of modality, masker, and SNR. Our findings suggest that when English age of acquisition and socioeconomic status is similar between groups, monolingual and bilingual children exhibit comparable speech-in-noise performance across a range of conditions analogous to everyday listening environments.
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spelling doaj.art-82a49a1f403d4705b5150f717ece944c2022-12-21T23:52:32ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032016-01-011112e016804810.1371/journal.pone.0168048Effect of Simultaneous Bilingualism on Speech Intelligibility across Different Masker Types, Modalities, and Signal-to-Noise Ratios in School-Age Children.Rachel ReetzkeBoji Pak-Wing LamZilong XieLi ShengBharath ChandrasekaranRecognizing speech in adverse listening conditions is a significant cognitive, perceptual, and linguistic challenge, especially for children. Prior studies have yielded mixed results on the impact of bilingualism on speech perception in noise. Methodological variations across studies make it difficult to converge on a conclusion regarding the effect of bilingualism on speech-in-noise performance. Moreover, there is a dearth of speech-in-noise evidence for bilingual children who learn two languages simultaneously. The aim of the present study was to examine the extent to which various adverse listening conditions modulate differences in speech-in-noise performance between monolingual and simultaneous bilingual children. To that end, sentence recognition was assessed in twenty-four school-aged children (12 monolinguals; 12 simultaneous bilinguals, age of English acquisition ≤ 3 yrs.). We implemented a comprehensive speech-in-noise battery to examine recognition of English sentences across different modalities (audio-only, audiovisual), masker types (steady-state pink noise, two-talker babble), and a range of signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs; 0 to -16 dB). Results revealed no difference in performance between monolingual and simultaneous bilingual children across each combination of modality, masker, and SNR. Our findings suggest that when English age of acquisition and socioeconomic status is similar between groups, monolingual and bilingual children exhibit comparable speech-in-noise performance across a range of conditions analogous to everyday listening environments.http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC5148102?pdf=render
spellingShingle Rachel Reetzke
Boji Pak-Wing Lam
Zilong Xie
Li Sheng
Bharath Chandrasekaran
Effect of Simultaneous Bilingualism on Speech Intelligibility across Different Masker Types, Modalities, and Signal-to-Noise Ratios in School-Age Children.
PLoS ONE
title Effect of Simultaneous Bilingualism on Speech Intelligibility across Different Masker Types, Modalities, and Signal-to-Noise Ratios in School-Age Children.
title_full Effect of Simultaneous Bilingualism on Speech Intelligibility across Different Masker Types, Modalities, and Signal-to-Noise Ratios in School-Age Children.
title_fullStr Effect of Simultaneous Bilingualism on Speech Intelligibility across Different Masker Types, Modalities, and Signal-to-Noise Ratios in School-Age Children.
title_full_unstemmed Effect of Simultaneous Bilingualism on Speech Intelligibility across Different Masker Types, Modalities, and Signal-to-Noise Ratios in School-Age Children.
title_short Effect of Simultaneous Bilingualism on Speech Intelligibility across Different Masker Types, Modalities, and Signal-to-Noise Ratios in School-Age Children.
title_sort effect of simultaneous bilingualism on speech intelligibility across different masker types modalities and signal to noise ratios in school age children
url http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC5148102?pdf=render
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