Onze beursstudenten

Elena BENOCCI

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Onderzoek in het kort !

Project

Evolution of stream segregation and auditory selective attention, and their respective contribution to the maturation of speech perception in noise throughout childhood

Project supervisor

Professor of neuropsychology and searcher at ULB, Axelle Calcus

Labo of hospitaal waar het project plaatsvindt

LCLD (Laboratoire cognition langage et développement) de l’Université Libre de Bruxelles

Objectives of research

Research objective 1: Development of the Intelligibility and Neural processing of speech in noise (IN-NOISE) battery in children with normal hearing.
Our first goal is to investigate the evolution of both stream segregation and auditory selective attention, and their respective contribution to the maturation of speech perception in noise in children.

Research objective 2: Benefit of musical expertise on the evolution of speech perception in
noise across the childhood.
Our second goal is to investigate the benefit of musical training on speech perception in noise (and corollaries: stream segregation and selective attention) across the childhood. To do so, we will recruit a cohort of trained musicians, and present them with the IN-NOISE battery.
Additionally, we will adapt the Profile of Musical Perception Skills [16]battery of musical listening abilities to French-speaking children .

Summary

Children have been shown to have great difficulty perceiving speech-in-noise. This difficulty has direct impacts on their daily lives. Children spend a lot of their time in school. School classes are considerably noisy environments (classmates discussing, ambient noise, etc.) They must, however, be able to follow their teacher's talks in this environment.

While the development of speech perception in noise has been shown to begin in childhood and continue through adolescence, the attentional mechanisms underlying it are not yet clearly defined.

The first goal of this project is to gain a better understanding of the development of speech-in- noise, as well as the development of the underlying mechanisms.

To do this, we want to collect both behavioral and neurophysiological data on speech-in-noise perception, auditory segregation, and auditory selective attention. Children will have to complete three tasks, each evaluating one of these skills.

The tasks will use “long” stimuli, more ecological to the auditory perception. The second goal is to understand which factor facilitates the maturation of speech-in-noise perception, auditory segregation, and auditory selective attention. We hypothesize that musical abilities (or experience) would allow faster maturation of speech perception in noise and the attentional mechanisms underlying.

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