Development of Neural Processing of Sound

09 Aug Development of Neural Processing of Sound

For most individuals, active participation in daily life requires the ability to follow conversations in crowded acoustic environments. Most typically-functioning young individuals have little trouble communicating in noisy environments. However, these processes are susceptible to disruption or breakdown at every level of the ascending auditory system. Individuals with peripheral hearing loss often have difficult focusing on one sound source and filtering our unwanted noise. It is clear that a substantial number of other people also exhibit listening deficits in noisy environments despite having normal hearing as assessed by standard audiometric testing. These deficits are hypothesized in some cases to result from central auditory processing impairments. The goal of this proposed research is to investigate how the developing auditory system supports the processing of sounds in noisy environments. Infant neural processing of sound provides a unique approach at studying brainstem versus cortical contributions due to the protracted development of the auditory cortical pathways. We want to understand neural mechanisms that underlie the perception of sounds in noisy environments in a variety of disordered populations.

Participant Eligibility

Infants between 1 month and 2 years of age with and without hearing loss.
Children between 2 and 17 years of age with and without hearing loss.
Infants between 1 month and 2 years of age learning English and another language.
Children between 2 and 17 years of age learning English and another language.
Young adult control subject with and without hearing loss that are 18+ years of age.
Adult control subjects that are learning more than one language that are 18+ years of age.

Contact

Jessica Chin
(206) 616-2041