image: A. Mixture of target (black) and masker (dark red and light red) sounds. Masker sounds covered target sound before and after. Keywords (color and object) are enclosed in squares. Children were asked to attend to target and choose keywords (color and object) after the sound ended. B. Target and masker sounds were perceived as spatial separation or co-location. C & D. Correlation of speech recognition thresholds with SNAP-IV (C) and CRPS (D) indices. Positive correlations indicate that higher speech recognition thresholds, indicating poorer speech recognition ability, are associated with higher ADHD symptom scores.
Credit: ©Science China Press
This study is led by Dr. Yayue Gao (Beihang University), Dr. Wang Qian (School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences at Peking University and the IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research), and Dr. Ying Li (Beijing Children's Hospital, Capital Medical University).
Mental and brain health of children and adolescents are important topics in public health. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of common disorders among them, with prevalence around 5% to 6%. ADHD impairs patients' behavioral and social functions, especially in learning, working, and socializing. Early detection and diagnosis of ADHD are crucial for timely intervention to improve their quality of lives and release the burden on the individual, family, and society. However, the diagnosis largely relies on subjective evaluations from parents, teachers, or healthcare professionals, which is unlikely to occur prior to academic difficulties, with poor timeliness and the risk of misdiagnosis or underdiagnosis.
Recent research has found that the difficult speech recognition under maskers may play as an objective indicator for ADHD detection. Speech recognition under maskers requires the allocation and maintenance of attentional resources, which are challenges faced by children with ADHD in attention and executive function.
Fan et al. collected data on speech recognition performance under masker in children with ADHD and healthy children. Results showed that children with ADHD exhibited impaired speech recognition under speech masker, rather than noise masker, indicating that their attentional difficulty in higher-level cognitive processing which derives from interference of similar information. Additionally, speech-on-speech recognition difficulty was correlated with the severity of ADHD symptoms, with severer ADHD symptom associated with more pronounced difficulties in speech-on-speech recognition. Under speech maskers, speech recognition ability in children with ADHD was correlated with the inattention and impulsivity/hyperactivity in the SNAP-IV scale, and with the hyperactive index, learning problems, and impulsivity-hyperactivity in the Conners Parent Rating Scale (CPRS). Therefore, difficult speech-on-speech recognition could be a potential indicator to objectively assess ADHD symptom.
In conclusion, this study provides new insights for early detection in ADHD. It not only promotes researchers' understanding of ADHD, but also provides a valuable tool in the ADHD objective evaluation.
See the article:
Difficult speech-on-speech recognition as a behavioral indicator in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
Journal
Medicine Plus