Home | Clinical Café Archive | March 2004

What is the relationship between what children hear and their speech production

Guest Columnist: Heather McDonald BA (Psychology) BEd (Special Educ)(Honours)4th Year student.

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No doubt speech-language pathologists would agree that a child's auditory discrimination ability is critical to his or her speech-language development and educational attainment. This is why so many children are referred by SLP's to audiologists to check their hearing. Unfortunately the standard audiometry 'pure-tone' tests are not designed to test for children's hearing abilities in the classroom. Often children with educationally significant "minimal hearing loss" are overlooked (Flexer, 1994 p.37) and they suffer in silence throughout their school years - even though research over the last 20 years has found that these children are over-represented in special education classes (Sarff, Ray, & Bagwell, 1981) and are faced with many academic and social challenges (Crandell, Smaldino, & Flexer, 1995).

As part of a BEd Special Education Honours Research project I administered the Goldman-Fristoe-Woodcock Test of Auditory Discrimination (1970) (G-F-W) to 103 junior primary school children. The G-F-W provided an assessment of the children's ability to discriminate words under quiet and noise conditions. The children's teachers completed a short questionnaire, regarding their classroom behavior which included a question about how often the children mispronounced words. Classroom acoustical measurements were taken and the parent(s)/caregiver(s) completed a questionnaire as well.

Two of the most significant results from the study revealed that the children with the greatest difficulty discriminating words-against-background-noise were much more likely to have speech-language difficulties (p<.05) and were more likely to have been to a speech-language pathologist (p<.05). From the teachers reports it was found that the children whom were substantially affected by background noise were also more likely to mispronounce words (p<.05) than children not so affected by background noise.

Difficulty discriminating words against background noise can be a significant problem for school children as teaching is largely performed through the medium of the teacher's voice and classrooms usually have extremely poor acoustics. Researchers have found that typical classroom noise levels far exceed the level recommended by ASHA and that the signal-to-noise ratio, which is the most important environmental factor that affects classroom communication, is also typically substantially below what is needed for speech recognition (Crandell & Smaldino, 2000 p.363).

It is possible to speculate that one of the factors contributing to children's speech impediment is poor classroom acoustics which influences how they are actually hearing the speech sounds. This could be what Dr Carol Flexer was alluding to when she stated that "The primary negative effect of the invisible acoustic filter of hearing impairment is its impact on verbal language acquisition. We speak because we hear, and we speak what we hear" (Flexer, 1994 p.5).

Speech-language pathologists can help children substantially by testing children who mispronounce words, to identify any difficulty these children have in "real-life hearing", i.e. hearing-against-background-noise. The G-F-W only takes around 14 minutes per child. The results can then be shared with the child's caregivers and teachers and suitable interventions can then be put into place. These interventions can then change academic and social failure into success.

REFERENCES

Crandell, C.C. & Smaldino, J.J. (2000) Classroom Acoustics for Children with normal hearing and with hearing impairment., Language, Speech, and Hearing Services In Schools, 31, pp. 362-370.

Crandell, C.C., Smaldino, J.J. & Flexer, C. (1995) Sound-Field FM Amplification: Theory and Practical Applications (San Diego, California, Singular Publishing Group Inc).

Flexer, C. (1994) Facilitating Hearing and Listening in Young Children (San Diego, California, Singular Publishing Group, Inc).

Goldman, R., Fristoe, M. & Woodcock, R.W. (1970) Goldman-Fristoe-Woodcock Test of Auditory Discrimination (Circle Pines, Minn., American Guidance Service, Inc).

Sarff, L.S., Ray, H.R. & Bagwell, C.L. (1981) Why Not Amplification In Every Classroom?, Hearing Aid Journal, pp. 11, 44, 47-48,50,52.

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