Testing the Hearing in Noise Ability of 6-year-old Children in New Zealand

Abstract

Young children are particularly vulnerable to the effects of noise on speech intelligibility in noisy classrooms. Currently hearing in noise tests are most commonly performed on children at least 7 years of age, however, in the interest of early intervention, testing younger children is beneficial. The Hearing in Noise Test for Children (HINT-C) has recently been rerecorded in New Zealand and is appropriate for use with children from as young as 6 years old. Being able to understand the ability of 6-year-olds to listen in noise, and identify those children who find it more difficult, will enable the application of appropriate interventions to ensure all children have adequate access to the curriculum. Forty-three 6-year-old children were recruited for this study from a school in the Auckland region, thirty-two of these children passed an initial hearing screen and continued on to complete the HINT-C. These children also completed self-report questionnaires regarding their self-perceived ability to listen in noise and their auditory performance was rated by their teachers, in comparison to their peers. A mean SNR 50 of +1.3 dB (SD= 1.2) was found for these 6-year-old children, this is poorer than SNR 50s found in other studies using other versions of the HINT-C. As expected, hearing in noise ability improved with age and those with English as a second language performed more poorly on the HINT-C than their monolingual peers. Neither of the questionnaires correlated with hearing in noise ability and therefore they are recommended only as a tool to provide contextual information regarding hearing in noise ability. Other recommendations include the need for more regular hearing screening as 26% of the children recruited did not pass the hearing screen. Hearing in noise ability of these 6-year-olds raises concerns regarding classroom acoustics and the ability of these young children to access the curriculum. This emphasises the need for appropriate classroom acoustics and the identification of children who experience significantly more difficulty listening in noise.