Discover how hearing loss and background noise affect how children process and understand words in real time. Kelsey will share findings from eye-tracking studies that reveal how children with hearing aids, cochlear implants, and even typical hearing differ in word recognition and processing speed.

Title: Effects of Hearing Loss and Competing Speech on Children’s Real-Time Spoken Word Recognition

Abstract: To comprehend speech, children must efficiently process spoken words and access word meaning in real time. Listening to speech under degraded auditory conditions can impede children’s ability to effectively recognize words and their meanings. In this talk, I will discuss a series of eye-tracking studies utilizing the Visual World Paradigm that examine the effects of congenital hearing loss and competing speech on real-time lexical access, lexical competition, and semantic activation in school-age children. Findings suggest that both children who use hearing aids and children with cochlear implants show delayed processing of words and their meanings, even when listening in a quiet environment. Furthermore, even low-intensity competing speech impacts word recognition efficiency among children with normal hearing. Potential contributions of language and cognitive factors to individual differences in real-time processing will also be discussed.