Effects of noise and reverberation on speech perception and listening comprehension of children and adults in a classroom-like setting

Abstract

The effects of classroom noise and background speech on speech perception, measured by word-to-picture matching, and listening comprehension, measured by execution of oral instructions, were assessed in first- and third-grade children and adults in a classroom-like setting. For speech perception, in addition to noise, reverberation time (RT) was varied by conducting the experiment in two virtual classrooms with mean RT = 0.47 versus RT = 1.1 s. Children were more impaired than adults by background sounds in both speech perception and listening comprehension. Classroom noise evoked a reliable disruption in children's speech perception even under conditions of short reverberation. RT had no effect on speech perception in silence, but evoked a severe increase in the impairments due to background sounds in all age groups. For listening comprehension, impairments due to background sounds were found in the children, stronger for first- than for third-graders, whereas adults were unaffected. Compared to classroom noise, background speech had a smaller effect on speech perception, but a stronger effect on listening comprehension, remaining significant when speech perception was controlled. This indicates that background speech affects higher-order cognitive processes involved in children's comprehension. Children's ratings of the sound-induced disturbance were low overall and uncorrelated to the actual disruption, indicating that the children did not consciously realize the detrimental effects. The present results confirm earlier findings on the substantial impact of noise and reverberation on children's speech perception, and extend these to classroom-like environmental settings and listening demands closely resembling those faced by children at school.

Percepção de ruído em sala de aula por estudantes universitários e suas consequências sobre a qualidade do aprendizado

“…The high occurrence of classroom noise reports should be noted, and this noise disturbs the teacher's speech and voice, and harms its audibility for students (6,7,18) . It should be stressed that the agitation of current students is possibly not compatible with exposition-type classes, a common strategy used by teachers.…”

“…This is possibly due to the fact that the children are learning how to read and write, have less control over their own attention and concentration skills because of their young age, and also because they do not have enough Independence to study by themselves; factors that make the acquisition of written communication more difficult (1,7) .…”

“…Some investigations have shown that excess noise is harmful to the teaching-learning process, since it is distracting, restricts attention level and cognition, and makes listening and understanding the teacher's voice more difficult for the students (3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9) .…”

A Influência do ruído na habilidade auditiva de ordenação temporal para sons verbais

“…Numerous studies have been conducted to measure the impact of ambient noise on auditory skills in the school environment [10][11][12] . There is a body of evidence demonstrating the interference of noise in students' auditory skills, which are necessary to effective comprehension of curricular content 11,13 .…”

Sound localization and word discrimination in reverberant environment in children with developmental dyslexia

“…High reverberating levels may modify the spectral sound characteristics, speech intelligibility that may affect features of oral message 4,5 . Thus, may be related to premature attention fatigue, and to low school performance of students 6,7,8,9 .…”