Purpose. A small number of studies have explored children's perception of speakers’ voice quality and its possible influence on language comprehension. The aim of this explorative study was to investigate the relationship between the examiner's voice quality, the child's performance on a digital version of a language comprehension test, the Test for Reception of Grammar (TROG-2), and two measures of cognitive functioning. Method. The participants were (n = 86) mainstreamed 8-year old children with typical language development. Two groups of children (n = 41/45) were presented with the TROG-2 through recordings of one female speaker: one group was presented with a typical voice and the other with a simulated dysphonic voice. Result. Significant associations were found between executive functioning and language comprehension. The results also showed that children listening to the dysphonic voice achieved significantly lower scores for more difficult sentences (“the man but not the horse jumps”) and used more self-corrections on simpler sentences (“the girl is sitting”). Conclusion. Findings suggest that a dysphonic speaker's voice may force the child to allocate capacity to the processing of the voice signal at the expense of comprehension. The findings have implications for clinical and research settings where standardized language tests are used.

In general opinion computerized automatic speech recognition (ASR) seems to be regarded as a method only to accomplish transcriptions from spoken language to written text and as such quite insecure and rather cumbersome. However, due to great advances in computer technology and informatics methodology ASR has nowadays become quite dependable and easier to handle, and the number of applications has increased considerably. After some introductory background information on ASR a number of applications of great interest for professionals in voice, speech, and language therapy are pointed out. In the foreseeable future, the keyboard and mouse will by means of ASR technology be replaced in many functions by a microphone as the human–computer interface, and the computer will talk back via its loud-speaker. It seems important that professionals engaged in the care of oral communication disorders take part in this development so their clients may get the optimal benefit from this new technology.

Suboptimal listening conditions interfere with listeners’ on-line comprehension. A degraded source signal, noise that interferes with sound transmission and/or listeners’ cognitive or linguistic limitations are examples of adverse listening conditions. Few studies have explored the interaction of these factors in paediatric populations. Yet, they represent an increasing challenge in educational settings. We will in the following report on our research and address the effect of adverse listening conditions pertaining to speakers’ voices, background noise and children’s cognitive capacity on listening comprehension. Results from our studies clearly indicate that children risk underachieving both in formal assessments and in noisy class-rooms when an examiner or teacher speaks with a hoarse (dysphonic) voice. This seems particularly true when task complexity is low or when a child is approaching her/his limits of mastering a comprehension task.