How Children Hear Speech in Noise: MSUPE Researchers Present a New Diagnostic Test

An article titled "The 'Words in Noise' Test: A Tool for Objective Diagnosis of Speech Intelligibility Disorders in Children" has been published in the journal "Clinical and Special Psychology." The authors are Kirill Fadeev, Dzerassa Goyaeva, Tatyana Ovsyannikova, Ilakai Romero Reyes, Artem Novikov, Anna Rytikova, Elizaveta Davydova, Anna Ilyuntseva, Ulyana Mamokhina, Tatyana Stroganova, and Elena Orekhova.

The study addresses a problem particularly noticeable in school settings: a child may have normal peripheral hearing but experience significant difficulties understanding speech in background noise. Such difficulties may be related to features of central auditory processing and are found, in particular, in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

The authors developed a modified version of the computer-based "Words in Noise" test, designed to quantitatively assess how well a child recognises speech in the presence of interference. The test includes 144 high-frequency two-syllable words acquired in early childhood. Such speech material was chosen to reduce the dependence of the result on working memory capacity and intellectual development. The study involved 35 typically developing children and 52 verbal children with ASD, aged approximately 7 to 12 years. All participants had confirmed normal tonal hearing before testing. Children recognised words under two types of masking noise—stationary and amplitude-modulated—and at two signal-to-noise ratio levels.

One of the study's objectives was to test the stability of the test results and whether they are distorted by practice or fatigue. The authors found acceptable stability of the indicators during a single session. A practice effect was observed in both groups and did not differ between typically developing children and children with ASD, while no significant decline in results due to fatigue was found. Item difficulty ratings were also similar in the two groups: intraclass correlation coefficients exceeded 0.9.

The researchers paid particular attention to the ability to use brief reductions in intensity in amplitude-modulated noise. Such "windows" facilitate speech perception. This effect was observed in both typically developing children and children with ASD; however, in children with ASD, it was statistically significantly weaker after controlling for age and baseline speech recognition in stationary noise.

Overall, children with ASD recognised words in noise less well than their typically developing peers. The authors emphasise the marked heterogeneity of the group: speech perception difficulties were not found in all children with ASD. In 20% of participants with ASD, scores were more than two standard deviations below the age norm simultaneously in stationary and amplitude-modulated noise conditions; in 10%, the deviation exceeded three standard deviations in both conditions.

According to the authors, the "Words in Noise" test allows for quantitative assessment of speech perception impairments in noise masking. In its current version, the method can already be used to identify speech-hearing difficulties in primary school children, although normative boundaries still need to be refined on larger samples of typically developing children of different ages.

The results of such assessments can be used to adapt a child's educational and communicative environment. The article discusses measures such as reducing background noise, improving room acoustics, seating the child closer to the teacher, and using clearer, moderately paced speech with pauses between phrases.

The study was conducted within the framework of the MSUPE Development Program project "Neurocognitive Technologies for Functional Stratification of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and Other Neuropsychiatric Disorders" under the "Priority-2030" program, using equipment from the MSUPE Center for Neurocognitive Research.

Citation: Fadeev, K.A. et al. (2026). The "Words in Noise" Test: A Tool for Objective Diagnosis of Speech Intelligibility Disorders in Children. Clinical and Special Psychology, 15(2), 207–237. DOI: 10.17759/cpse.2026150211.