Influence of Task Difficulty and Age on Speech to Noise Modulation in Preschoolers.

This research paper summarizes several experiments in which children's speech volume was compared to the varied background noise against which they spoke. Age was found to be an important factor: 4 1/2-year-olds, as contrasted with 6 1/2-year-olds, failed to adjust their speech to make it audible over noise when talking about complex stimuli. Difficulty of material was also important: younger children adjusted their speech to the background noise level better when the materials spoken about were simple and familiar rather than complex and strange. Results are given for four studies comparing performance of preschool groups and older children from second and fifth grades. It is suggested that results be viewed in a kind of attentional model. The child properly gears communications to others only when reasonably at ease with the information being communicated. When material is more difficult, he can no longer interpret the greater complexity and also attend to the task of gearing his communication to his audience. (Author/BF)