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The Effect of Background Noise, Bilingualism, Socioeconomic Status, and Cognitive Functioning on Primary School Children's Narrative Listening Comprehension

Carlie, Johanna LU ; Sahlén, Birgitta LU ; Johansson, Roger LU orcid ; Andersson, Ketty LU orcid ; Whitling, Susanna LU and Brännström, Karl Jonas LU (2024) In Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research p.1-14
Abstract

PURPOSE: This study focuses on 7- to 9-year-old children attending primary school in Swedish areas of low socioeconomic status, where most children's school language is their second language. The aim was to better understand what factors influence these children's narrative listening comprehension both in an ideal listening condition (in quiet) and for the primary school classroom, a typical listening condition (with multitalker babble noise).

METHOD: A total of 86 typically developing 7- to 9-year-olds performed a narrative listening comprehension test (Lyssna, Förstå och Minnas [LFM]; English translation: Listen, Comprehend, and Remember) in two listening conditions: quiet and multitalker babble noise. They also performed the... (More)

PURPOSE: This study focuses on 7- to 9-year-old children attending primary school in Swedish areas of low socioeconomic status, where most children's school language is their second language. The aim was to better understand what factors influence these children's narrative listening comprehension both in an ideal listening condition (in quiet) and for the primary school classroom, a typical listening condition (with multitalker babble noise).

METHOD: A total of 86 typically developing 7- to 9-year-olds performed a narrative listening comprehension test (Lyssna, Förstå och Minnas [LFM]; English translation: Listen, Comprehend, and Remember) in two listening conditions: quiet and multitalker babble noise. They also performed the crosslinguistic nonword repetition test and a digit span backwards (DSB) test. A predictive statistical model including these factors, the children's degree of school language exposure, parental education level, and age was derived.

RESULTS: Listening condition had the strongest predictive value for LFM performance, followed by school language exposure and nonword repetition accuracy. Parental education level was also a significant predictor. There was a significant three-way interaction effect between listening condition, age, and DSB performance.

CONCLUSIONS: Multitalker babble noise has a negative effect on children's narrative listening comprehension. The effect of multitalker babble noise could be explained by age differences in the ability to allocate working memory capacity during the narrative listening comprehension task, suggesting that younger children may be more vulnerable for missing information when listening in background noise than their older peers.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.25209248.

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Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; ; ; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
epub
subject
in
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
pages
1 - 14
publisher
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
external identifiers
  • scopus:85187786874
  • pmid:38363725
ISSN
1558-9102
DOI
10.1044/2023_JSLHR-22-00637
project
Håll koll på ögonen - lyssningsansträngning och svenska som andraspråk i klassrummet
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
ae99707c-080e-4412-ac6b-f74c4d856a92
date added to LUP
2024-02-19 08:43:03
date last changed
2024-04-18 11:41:36
@article{ae99707c-080e-4412-ac6b-f74c4d856a92,
  abstract     = {{<p>PURPOSE: This study focuses on 7- to 9-year-old children attending primary school in Swedish areas of low socioeconomic status, where most children's school language is their second language. The aim was to better understand what factors influence these children's narrative listening comprehension both in an ideal listening condition (in quiet) and for the primary school classroom, a typical listening condition (with multitalker babble noise).</p><p>METHOD: A total of 86 typically developing 7- to 9-year-olds performed a narrative listening comprehension test (Lyssna, Förstå och Minnas [LFM]; English translation: Listen, Comprehend, and Remember) in two listening conditions: quiet and multitalker babble noise. They also performed the crosslinguistic nonword repetition test and a digit span backwards (DSB) test. A predictive statistical model including these factors, the children's degree of school language exposure, parental education level, and age was derived.</p><p>RESULTS: Listening condition had the strongest predictive value for LFM performance, followed by school language exposure and nonword repetition accuracy. Parental education level was also a significant predictor. There was a significant three-way interaction effect between listening condition, age, and DSB performance.</p><p>CONCLUSIONS: Multitalker babble noise has a negative effect on children's narrative listening comprehension. The effect of multitalker babble noise could be explained by age differences in the ability to allocate working memory capacity during the narrative listening comprehension task, suggesting that younger children may be more vulnerable for missing information when listening in background noise than their older peers.</p><p>SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.25209248.</p>}},
  author       = {{Carlie, Johanna and Sahlén, Birgitta and Johansson, Roger and Andersson, Ketty and Whitling, Susanna and Brännström, Karl Jonas}},
  issn         = {{1558-9102}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{02}},
  pages        = {{1--14}},
  publisher    = {{American Speech-Language-Hearing Association}},
  series       = {{Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research}},
  title        = {{The Effect of Background Noise, Bilingualism, Socioeconomic Status, and Cognitive Functioning on Primary School Children's Narrative Listening Comprehension}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1044/2023_JSLHR-22-00637}},
  doi          = {{10.1044/2023_JSLHR-22-00637}},
  year         = {{2024}},
}