The influence of voice quality and multi-talker babble noise on sentence processing and recall performance in school children using cochlear implant and/or hearing aids.

PURPOSE: This study examines the influence of voice quality and multi-talker babble noise on processing and storage performance in a working memory task performed by children using cochlear implants (CI) and/or hearing aids (HA).

METHODS

Twenty-three children with a hearing impairment using CI and/or HA participated. Age range was between 6 and 13 years. The Competing Language Processing Task (CLPT) was assessed in three listening conditions; a typical voice presented in quiet, a dysphonic voice in quiet, and a typical voice in multi-talker babble noise (signal-to-noise ratio +10 dB). Being a dual task, the CLPT consists of a sentence processing component and a recall component. The recall component constitutes the measure of working memory capacity (WMC). Higher-level executive function was assessed using Elithorn's mazes.

RESULTS

The results showed that the dysphonic voice did not affect performance in the processing component or performance in the recall component. Multi-talker babble noise decreased performance in the recall component but not in the processing component. Higher-level executive function was not significantly related to performance in any component.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings indicate that multi-talker babble noise, but not a dysphonic voice quality, seems to put strain on WMC in children using CI and/or HA.