PERFORMANCE OF CHILDREN AGED 9 TO 17 YEARS ON A TEST OF SPEECH-INTELLIGIBILITY IN NOISE USING SENTENCE MATERIAL WITH CONTROLLED WORD PREDICTABILITY

Performance of children aged 9 to 17 years on the SPIN test (Speech Perception in Noise) is described. The 11- and 13-year-olds performed significantly poorer than 15- and 17-year-olds, and this difference occurred primarily for high-predictability sentences presented at a 0-dB signal-to-babble ratio. Performance of nine-year-olds was significantly poorer than performance of 11-year-olds. Possible reasons for these differences are discussed. © 1979, American Association of Physics Teachers. All rights reserved.