Informational masking of speech in dyslexic children

Abstract

Studies evaluating speech perception in noise have reported inconsistent results regarding a potential deficit in dyslexic children. So far, most of them investigated energetic masking. The present study evaluated situations inducing mostly informational masking, which reflects cognitive interference induced by the masker. Dyslexic children were asked to identify a female target syllable presented in quiet, babble, unmodulated, and modulated speech-shaped noise. Whereas their performance was comparable to normal-reading children in quiet, it dropped significantly in all noisy conditions compared to age-, but not reading level-matched controls. Interestingly, noise affected similarly the reception of voicing, place, and manner of articulation in dyslexic and normal-reading children.

Peripheral and central contribution to the difficulty of speech in noise perception in dyslexic children

“…Unlike previous results obtained in SN/GN ) and babble noise (Hazan et al, 2013), our results failed to reveal any group difference on the perception of any of the phonetic traits investigated. However, this result is coherent with recent observations that noise seems to affect dyslexic children's reception of voicing, place and manner of articulation in the same way as it affects normally reading children (Calcus et al, 2015b;Calcus et al, 2016).…”

“…Interestingly, in the present study, dyslexic children were also impaired when presented with Babble noise, hence underscoring the importance of higher-level, cognitive factors to their SIN perception deficit. Recent work in dyslexic children points to specific difficulties in auditory backgrounds maximizing IM (Calcus, Colin, Deltenre, & Kolinsky, 2015a, 2015b). Yet so far, the outcome of studies investigating IM in dyslexic individuals is mixed, which could be due to differences in the populations investigated across studies.…”

“…Similarly, a deleterious effect of babble noise on consonant intelligibility in dyslexic children was observed especially when the variability in intonation was important (Hazan, Messaoud-Galusi, & Rosen, 2013). Dyslexic adults were only impaired when a 4-talkers interfering babble was presented monotically, that is, in the same ear as the target speech (Dole, Hoen, & Meunier, 2012); however, dyslexic children were also impaired in a dichotic setting, that is, when an 8-talkers masker was presented in the ear contralateral to the target (Calcus, Colin, Deltenre, & Kolinsky, 2015b). Yet, Elbro, Borstrom, and Petersen (1998) failed to evidence a performance difference between 6-year-old dyslexic children at risk for dyslexia and controls presented with a phoneme discrimination task in 12-talkers babble noise.…”

“…Contrary to the largely consistent deficit of SIN perception observed in dyslexics with EM/MM, studies investigating IM led to puzzling results. Dyslexic adults were only impaired when a 4-talkers interfering babble was presented monotically, that is, in the same ear as the target speech (Dole, Hoen, & Meunier, 2012); however, dyslexic children were also impaired in a dichotic setting, that is, when an 8-talkers masker was presented in the ear contralateral to the target (Calcus, Colin, Deltenre, & Kolinsky, 2015b). Indeed, dyslexic individuals performed similarly to controls in a categorical perception task in a 20-talkers babble noise, but were impaired when their discrimination abilities were measured by means of fixed steps (Hazan, Messaoud-Galusi, Rosen, Nouwens, & Shakespeare, 2009;Messaoud-Galusi, Hazan, & Rosen, 2011).…”

Audio‐visual speech in noise perception in dyslexia

“…While this deficit is less noticeable in optimal listening conditions (e.g., speech-in-quiet), it becomes more evident in challenging listening conditions. Several studies have found that speech-in-noise perception is impaired in both children and adults with DD (Boets et al, 2011;Calcus, Colin, Deltenre, & Kolinsky, 2015;Dole, Hoen, & Meunier, 2012;Dole, Meunier, & Hoen, 2014;Ziegler, Pech-Georgel, George, & Lorenzi, 2009).…”