Signe Hjorth Fogh1,2, Shno Koiek1,2, Tobias Neher1,2
1Institute of Clinical Research, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
2Research Unit for ORL – Head & Neck Surgery and Audiology, Odense University Hospital, Odense, Denmark; University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
Recently, a Danish sentence material for assessing speech recognition in noise in school-age children (the ‘børneDAT’ material) was developed. To allow this material to be used clinically, age-specific normative data are required. The aim of the current study was to collect such data for participants aged 6-7, 7-8, 8-9, 9-10, 10-11, 11-12, 12-13 and 20-30 years. Another aim was to assess the test-retest reliability of the collected data. Seventy-four children and 12 adults participated. Speech recognition thresholds (SRTs) were measured twice at two different visits in each of four conditions. In the first two conditions, diotic stationary speech-shaped noise was used. The target speech was presented diotically (N0S0) or interaurally out-of-phase (N0S180). In the other two conditions, two running speech maskers were used. The target speech was presented from 0° and the two speech maskers from either 0° (co-located) or ±90° (spatially separated). In general, the SRTs decreased with higher age, with the groups <10-11 years obtaining higher SRTs than the adults. The SRTs were lowest in the N0S180 and spatially separated conditions (means: -6.7 and −6.6 dB SNR, respectively) and highest in the co-located condition (mean: −1.8 dB SNR). The within-subject standard deviation of the measurements was smallest in the N0S0 condition (1.0 dB SNR) and largest in the spatially separated condition (1.3 dB SNR). Training effects were on the order of 1-1.5 dB. In conclusion, these results demonstrate the applicability of the børneDAT material for assessing speech recognition in noise in children as young as 6 years.