Relationship between listening comprehension and signal-to-noise ratio loss in children

This study compared the listening comprehension skills and signal-to-noise ratio hearing loss of third grade children. A pool of potential participants was formed based on their scores earned on the listening comprehension subtest of the Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Examination (GRADE). Twenty-one third grade students were available for participation in this study. In order to accomplish the purposes of this study, the same 21 children were grouped by three separate criteria: listening comprehension scores, sentence comprehension scores, and hearing sensitivity. The instrument used in this study was the Quick Speech In Noise (QuickSIN), an adaptive test that uses a recording of IEEE sentences [Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers] as the signal and a four-talker babble as the background noise. Descriptive statistics were computed for both groups to assess significant differences. Findings and implications of this investigation are discussed.