Differences Between Subjective and Behavioral Listening Effort in Children Across Age and Task Complexity

Subjective and behavioral measures of listening effort differed with respect to the effects of noise and age. Nevertheless, less behavioral listening effort was observed with increasing age, and subjective listening effort was higher in noisy conditions. Both measures were consistent across acoustic conditions, indicating similar levels of induced effort in anechoic and low reverberant () environments. On the basis of the results, studies investigating behavioral and subjective listening effort jointly are recommended. Regarding speech perception, room effects negatively affected the performance of 6- to 7-year-olds in multi-talker babble noise. In addition, 8- to 10-year-olds showed better speech perception in noise and silence compared with their younger peers. Overall, classroom noise had a negative effect on children's speech perception.