spoken language processing; classroom noise; dysphonic voice; discrimination task; sentence comprehension task; classroom listening; children; listening task; dysphonia in teachers; speech perception; listening comprehension; classroom acoustics; speech in noise
Abstract :
[en] Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate children’s processing of dysphonic speech in a realistic classroom setting, under the influence of added classroom noise.
Method: Normally developing 6-year-old primary-school children performed two listening tasks in their regular classrooms: a phoneme discrimination task to assess speech perception, and a sentence-picture matching task to assess listening comprehension. Speech stimuli were played back in either a normal or an impaired voice quality. Children performed the tasks in the presence of induced classroom noise at signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) between +2 and +9 dB.
Results: Children’s performance in the phoneme discrimination task decreased significantly when the speaker’s voice was impaired. The effect of voice quality on sentence-picture matching depended on task demands: easy sentences were processed more accurately in the impaired-voice condition than in the normal-voice conditions. SNR effects are discussed in light of methodological constraints.
Conclusions: Listening to a dysphonic teacher in a noisy classroom may impede children’s perception of speech, particularly when phonological discrimination is needed to disambiguate the speech input. Future research regarding the interaction of voice quality and task demands is necessary.
Akaike, H. (1974). A new look at the statistical model identifica-tion. IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 19(6), 716–723. https://doi.org/10.1109/TAC.1974.1100705
American National Standards Institute. (2010). ANSI/ASA S12.60-2010/Part 1: American National Standard: Acoustical performance criteria, design requirements, and guidelines for schools, Part 1: Permanent schools.
Barsties, B., & De Bodt, M. (2015). Assessment of voice quality: Current state-of-the-art. Auris Nasus Larynx, 42(3), 183–188. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anl.2014.11.001
Bates, D., Mächler, M., Bolker, B., & Walker, S. (2015). Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software, 67(1), 1–48. https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v067.i01
Bradley, J. S., & Sato, H. (2008). The intelligibility of speech in elementary school classrooms. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 123(4), 2078–2086. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.2839285
Brännström,K.J.,Kastberg,T.,vonLochow,H.,Haake,M., Sahlén, B., & Lyberg-Åhlander, V. (2018). The influence of voice quality on sentence processing and recall performance in school-age children with normal hearing. Speech, Language and Hearing, 21(1), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1080/2050571X.2017. 1309787
Brännström, K. J., von Lochow, H., Lyberg-Åhlander, V., & Sahlén, B. (2018). Immediate passage comprehension and encoding of information into long-term memory in children with normal hearing: The effect of voice quality and multitalker babble noise. American Journal of Audiology, 27(2), 231–237. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_AJA-17-0061
Crandell, C. C., & Smaldino, J. J. (2000). Classroom acoustics for children with normal hearing and with hearing impairment. Lan-guage, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 31(4), 362–370. https://doi.org/10.1044/0161-1461.3104.362
Four Audio. (2018). WinMF measurement software [Computer software].
Hirano, M. (1981). Psycho-acoustic evaluation of voice. In G. Arnold, F. Winckel, & B. Wyke (Eds.), Disorders of human communication (pp. 81–84). Springer.
Howard, C. S., Munro, K. J., & Plack, C. J. (2010). Listening effort at signal-to-noise ratios that are typical of the school classroom. International Journal of Audiology, 49(12), 928–932. https://doi. org/10.3109/14992027.2010.520036
Khomsi, A. (2001). ELO: Évaluation du Langage Oral (Oral Language Evaluation) [Measurement instrument]. ECPA Pearson.
Korkman, M., Kirk, U., & Kemp, S. L. (2007). NEPSY-II (2nd ed.) [Measurement instrument]. Harcourt Assessment.
Lenth, R. V. (2016). Least-squares means: The R package lsmeans. Journal of Statistical Software, 69(1), 1–33. https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v069.i01
Lo, S., & Andrews, S. (2015). To transform or not to transform: Using generalized linear mixed models to analyse reaction time data. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1171. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01171
Lyberg-Åhlander, V., Haake, M., Brännström, J., Schötz, S., & Sahlén, B. (2015). Does the speaker’s voice quality influence children’s performance on a language comprehension test. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 17(1), 63–73. https://doi.org/10.3109/17549507.2014.898098
Lyberg-Åhlander, V., Holm, L., Kastberg, T., Haake, M., Brännström, K.J.,&Sahlén,B.(2015). Are children with stronger cognitive capacity more or less disturbed by classroom noise and dyspho-nic teachers. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 17(6), 577–588. https://doi.org/10.3109/17549507.2015.1024172
Macchi, L., Descours, C., Girard, É., Guitton, É., Morel, C., Timmermans, N., & Boidein, F. (2012). ELDP: Épreuve Lilloise de Discrimination Phonologique (The Lille Test of Phonological Discrimination) [Measurement instrument]. http://orthophonie. univ-lille2.fr/stocks/stock-contents/epreuve-lilloise-de-discrimination-phonologique.html
Martins, R. H. G., Pereira, E. R. B. N., Hidalgo, C. B., & Tavares, E. L. M. (2014). Voice disorders in teachers. A review. Journal of Voice, 28(6), 716–724. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2014. 02.008
Maryn, Y., Corthals, P., Van Cauwenberge, P., Roy, N., & De Bodt, M. (2010). Toward improved ecological validity in the acoustic measurement of overall voice quality: Combining continuous speech and sustained vowels. Journal of Voice, 24(5), 540–555. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2008.12.014
Mattys,S.L.,Brooks,J.,&Cooke,M.(2009). Recognizing speech under a processing load: Dissociating energetic from informa-tional factors. Cognitive Psychology, 59(3), 203–243. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2009.04.001
McShefferty, D., Whitmer, W. M., & Akeroyd, M. A. (2015). The just-noticeable difference in speech-to-noise ratio. Trends in Hearing, 19, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1177/2331216515572316
Mealings, K. (2016). Classroom acoustic conditions: Understanding what is suitable through a review of national and international standards, recommendations, and live classroom measurements. In I. D. M. Hillock & D. J. Mee (Eds.), Pro-ceedings of Acoustics 2016: The Second Australasian Acoustical Societies Conference (pp. 1047–1056). The Australian Acoustical Society.
Millward, K. E., Hall, R. L., Ferguson, M. A., & Moore, D. R. (2011). Training speech-in-noise perception in mainstream school children. International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryn-gology, 75(11), 1408–1417. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijporl.2011. 08.003
Morsomme, D., Minell, L., & Verduyckt, I. (2011). Impact of teachers’ voice quality on children’s language processing skills. VOCOLOGIE: Stem en Stemstoornissen, 9–15.
Morton, V., & Watson, D. R. (2001). The impact of impaired vocal quality on children’s ability to process spoken language. Logope-dics Phoniatrics Vocology, 26(1), 17–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/14015430118232
Peng, J., & Jiang, P. (2016). Chinese word identification and sentence intelligibility in primary school classrooms. Archives of Acoustics, 41(2), 213–219. https://doi.org/10.1515/aoa-2016-0021
Peng, J., Zhang, H., & Yan, N. (2016). Effect of different types of noises on Chinese speech intelligibility of children in elementary school classrooms. Acta Acustica united with Acustica, 102(5), 938–944. https://doi.org/10.3813/AAA.919008
Prodi,N.,Visentin,C.,Borella,E.,Mammarella,I.C.,&DiDomenico, A. (2019). Noise, age, and gender effects on speech intelligibility and sentence comprehension for 11-to 13-year-old children in real classrooms. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 2166. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02166
Prodi, N., Visentin, C., Peretti, A., Griguolo, J., & Bartolucci, G. B. (2019). Investigating listening effort in classrooms for 5-to 7-year-old children. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 50(2), 196–210. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_LSHSS-18-0039
R Core Team. (2019). R: A language and environment for statistical computing [Computer software]. https://www.R-project.org/
Roy, N., Merrill, R. M., Thibeault, S., Parsa, R. A., Gray, S. D., & Smith, E. M. (2004). Prevalence of voice disorders in teachers and the general population. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 47(2), 281–293. https://doi.org/10.1044/1092-4388(2004/023)
Röer, J. P., Bell, R., & Buchner, A. (2014). Evidence for habitua-tion of the irrelevant-sound effect on serial recall. Memory & Cognition, 42(4), 609–621. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-013-0381-y
Schiller, I. S., Morsomme, D., Kob, M., & Remacle, A. (2020). Noise and a speaker’s impaired voice quality disrupt spoken language processing in school-aged children: Evidence from performance and response time measures. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 63(7), 2115–2131. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_JSLHR-19-00348
Schiller, I. S., Remacle, A., Durieux, N., & Morsomme, D. (2020, January, 9–10). The effects of noise and impaired voice quality on spoken language processing in school-aged children: Preliminary results of a systematic review [Poster presentation]. The 12th Speech in Noise Workshop, Toulouse, France.
Schiller,I.S.,Remacle,A.,&Morsomme,D.(2019). NODYS: NOrmophonic and DYsphonic Speech samples, Mendeley Data (Version 1) [Database]. Mendeley. https://doi.org/10.17632/g2fmkw8t85.1.
Schiller, I. S., Remacle, A., & Morsomme, D. (2020). Imitating dysphonic voice: A suitable technique to create speech stimuli for spoken language processing tasks. Logopedics Pho-niatrics Vocology, 45(4), 1651–2022. https://doi.org/10.1080/14015439.2019.1659410
Steeneken, H. J. M., & Houtgast, T. (1980). A physical method for measuring speech-transmission quality. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 67(1), 318–326. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.384464
Sullivan, J. R., Osman, H., & Schafer, E. C. (2015). The effect of noise on the relationship between auditory working memory and comprehension in school-age children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 58(3), 1043–1051. https://doi.org/10.1044/2015_JSLHR-H-14-0204
Teixeira, J. P., & Fernandes, P. O. (2015). Acoustic analysis of vocal dysphonia. Procedia Computer Science, 64, 466–473. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2015.08.544
Valente, D. L., Plevinsky, H. M., Franco, J. M., Heinrichs-Graham, E. C., & Lewis, D. E. (2012). Experimental investigation of the effects of the acoustical conditions in a simulated classroom on speech recognition and learning in children. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 131(1), 232–246. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.3662059
Van Houtte, E., Claeys, S., Wuyts, F., & Van Lierde, K. (2011). The impact of voice disorders among teachers: Vocal complaints, treatment-seeking behavior, knowledge of vocal care, and voice-related absenteeism. Journal of Voice, 25(5), 570–575. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2010.04.008
