Speech Science Forum 18th March - Katharina Zenke

Title: Spatial release from masking in children: influence of listening difficulties and auditory environments

Abstract:

Children diagnosed with Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) have difficulties listening to speech in noise despite normal peripheral hearing. This developmental disorder is still poorly understood and there is a need for better tools for diagnosis and intervention in young children. One promising avenue of research is the claim that some children referred for APD assessment are found to have a reduced spatial release from masking (SRM). Current clinical tests measure the SRM in virtual auditory environments generated with head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) from an average adult head. Adults and children, however, can be very different in head dimensions and proportions and mismatched HRTFs are known to affect some aspects of binaural hearing. HRTFs in children have not been systematically studied so far and it is unclear whether a large HRTF mismatch can impact speech perception, especially for children with difficulties processing auditory information. In this project, we measured HRTFs in adults and children with and without a diagnosis of APD and examined the effect of non-individualized HRTFs on the SRM compared to real and individualized virtual auditory environments.