Listening Effort in Native and Nonnative English-Speaking Children Using Low Linguistic Single- and Dual-Task Paradigms

Abstract

Purpose It is not clear if behavioral indices of listening effort are sensitive to changes in signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for young children (7–12 years old) from multilingual backgrounds. The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of SNR on listening effort in multilingual school-aged children (native English, nonnative English) as measured with a single- and a dual-task paradigm with low-linguistic speech stimuli (digits). The study also aimed to explore age effects on digit triplet recognition and response times (RTs). Method Sixty children with normal hearing participated, 30 per language group. Participants completed single and dual tasks in three SNRs (quiet, −10 dB, and −15 dB). Speech stimuli for both tasks were digit triplets. Verbal RTs were the listening effort measure during the single-task paradigm. A visual monitoring task was the secondary task during the dual-task paradigm. Results Significant effects of SNR on RTs were evident during both single- and dual-task paradigms. As expected, language background did not affect the pattern of RTs. The data also demonstrate a maturation effect for triplet recognition during both tasks and for RTs during the dual-task only. Conclusions Both single- and dual-task paradigms were sensitive to changes in SNR for school-aged children between 7 and 12 years of age. Language background (English as native language vs. English as nonnative language) had no significant effect on triplet recognition or RTs, demonstrating practical utility of low-linguistic stimuli for testing children from multilingual backgrounds.