Issues in human auditory development

Abstract

The human auditory system is often portrayed as precocious in its development. In fact, many aspects of basic auditory processing appear to be adult-like by the middle of the first year of postnatal life. However, processes such as attention and sound source determination take much longer to develop. Immaturity of higher-level processes limits the processing of both simple and complex sounds by infants and children. Young listeners with impaired hearing may be at a particular disadvantage, in that they must make sense of sounds on the basis of a degraded representation using immature perceptual strategies.Learning outcomes-(1) Readers will be able to describe three stages of human auditory development. (2) Readers will be able to describe how experience with sound is important in auditory development. (3) Readers will be able to describe the role of attention and other higher-level processes in early audition.

Speech recognition in one- and two-talker maskers in school-age children and adults: Development of perceptual masking and glimpsing

“…This age effect cannot be attributed to maturation of the auditory periphery, which is functionally mature by 6 months of age (Werner, 2007). Prolonged development of speech recognition in a speech masker is more consistent with observations that maturation of the auditory cortex extends into late childhood (Moore and Linthicum, 2007).…”

Loudness in the Laboratory, Part I: Steady-State Sounds

“…In addition, RT-intensity functions for most infants were steeper than for most adults. It is difficult to attribute these findings to age differences in sensory processing (Werner 2007). Instead, infants' steeper functions are consistent with the idea that infants and adults differ in how they listen to sounds.…”

“…These listeners enter the laboratory with a wide range of auditory experiences and a mature auditory system. The interaction between loudness and age has received less attention; despite mounting evidence of substantial changes in intensity processing during infancy and childhood (reviewed by Werner 2007) and an emerging literature describing effects of advanced aging on hearing (e.g., Fitzgibbons et al 2007). This section describes the small number of studies that have examined loudness for steady-state sounds as a function of age, studies primarily focused on understanding the relation between sound level and loudness.…”

Prolonged development of auditory skills: A role for perceptual anchoring?

“…Despite methodological differences across studies, they are consistent in showing that frequency discrimination (a) is far from mature by school entry and continues to develop during the primary school years, perhaps even beyond; (b) varies widely across children within an age group; and (c) strongly depends on the exact nature of the psychophysical paradigm used during testing. Low-level auditory sensory processing seems mature by school entry (Johnson, Nicol, Zecker, & Kraus, 2008;Werner, 2007). A plausible interpretation of those findings, therefore, is that non-sensory factors associated with the assessment procedure, such as attention or working memory, contribute to this prolonged development, since both improve with age (Coch, Sanders, & Neville, 2005;Gomes, Duff, Barnhardt, Barrett, & Ritter, 2007;Lane & Pearson, 1982;Rueda et al, 2004).…”

“…This is so despite the relatively early maturation of the anatomical structures that support auditory sensory processing (i.e., processes associated with the encoding and analysis of acoustic structure; Werner, 2007). One explanation of this apparent discrepancy is that non-sensory factors (e.g., attention, working memory) associated with the performance of the psychophysical tasks -used to estimate conscious perception and that take longer to mature -are responsible for the prolonged developmental trajectories of various auditory skills (Moore, Ferguson, Halliday, & Riley, 2008;Werner, 2007). Despite its obvious appeal, this idea has received little experimental corroboration.…”