Objective and subjective speech intelligibility assessments in primary school classrooms

Arianna Astolfi, Pasquale Bottalico

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

This work describes the results of speech intelligibility tests and measurements performed in primary school classrooms. The analyses were carried out in two laboratory-classrooms characterized by 1.6 s and 0.7 s occupied midfrequency reverberation time (RT), in presence of different types of noise. Speech babble and fan-coil noise were emitted into the room, traffic noise came from an external source and impact noise was generated on the floor upstairs the classroom. A total of about 3700 tests were submitted to 470 students from 7 to 11 year olds. The correlations between speech intelligibility and objective parameters are obtained for children of different age. The availability of data referred to two different conditions, with high and low RT respectively, allows to determine intelligibility decrease due to reverberation. A further research outcome is the effect on speech intelligibility of the different types of noise. One of the main finding of the work, as found in a previous research, is that younger children need more restrictive acoustical condition than older ones, for achieving the same level of speech intelligibility. A good correspondence was found between speech intelligibility and listening difficulty, the latter evaluated on a 5-point scale from "very easy" to "very difficult".

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publication38th International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering 2009, INTER-NOISE 2009
Pages1857-1865
Number of pages9
StatePublished - 2009
Externally publishedYes
Event38th International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering 2009, INTER-NOISE 2009 - Ottawa, ON, Canada
Duration: Aug 23 2009Aug 26 2009

Publication series

Name38th International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering 2009, INTER-NOISE 2009
Volume3

Other

Other38th International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering 2009, INTER-NOISE 2009
Country/TerritoryCanada
CityOttawa, ON
Period8/23/098/26/09

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Acoustics and Ultrasonics

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