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Students learn in noisy classrooms, where the main sources of noise are their own voices. In this sound environment, students are not equally at risk from background noise interference during lessons, due to the moderation effect of the individual characteristics on the listening conditions. This study investigates the effect of the number of competing speakers on listening comprehension and whether this is modulated by selective attention skills, working memory, and noise sensitivity. Seventy-one primary school students aged 10 to 13 years completed a sentence comprehension task in three listening conditions: quiet, two competing speakers, and four competing speakers. Outcome measures were accuracy, listening effort (response times and self-reported), motivation, and confidence in completing the task. Individual characteristics were assessed in quiet. Results showed that the number of competing speakers has no direct effects on the task, whilst the individual characteristics were found to moderate the effect of the listening conditions. Selective attention moderated the effects on accuracy and response times, working memory on motivation, and noise sensitivity on both perceived effort and confidence. Students with low cognitive abilities and high noise sensitivity were found to be particularly at risk in the condition with two competing speakers.

Purpose: The current study investigated the effect of text variables including length, readability, propositional content, and type of information on the reading comprehension of people with aphasia., Method: The performance of 75 people with aphasia was compared with 87 healthy, age-matched control participants. Reading comprehension was considered in terms of both accuracy in responding to questions tapping comprehension and reading time. Participants with aphasia (PWA) were divided into 2 groups (no reading impairment [PWA:NRI] and reading impairment [PWA:RI]) depending on whether their performance fell within the 5th percentile of control participants., Results: As groups, both PWA:NRI and PWA:RI differed significantly from control participants in terms of reading time and comprehension accuracy. PWA:NRI and PWA:RI differed from each other in terms of accuracy but not reading time. There was no significant effect of readability or propositional density on comprehension accuracy or reading time for any of the groups. There was a significant effect of length on reading time but not on comprehension accuracy. All groups found main ideas easier than details, stated information easier than inferred, and had particular difficulty with questions that required integration of information across paragraphs (gist)., Conclusions: Both accuracy of comprehension and reading speed need to be considered when characterizing reading difficulties in people with aphasia.