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Published in final edited form as: Wiley Interdiscip Rev Cogn Sci. 2023 Dec 3;15(2):e1671. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1671

Children build their vocabularies in noisy environments: The necessity of a cross-disciplinary approach to understand word learning

Katherine R Gordon 1, Tina M Grieco-Calub 2
PMCID: PMC10939936  NIHMSID: NIHMS1945801  PMID: 38043926

Abstract

Research within the language sciences has informed our understanding of how children build vocabulary knowledge especially during early childhood and the early school years. However, to date, our understanding of word learning in children is based primarily on research in quiet laboratory settings. The everyday environments that children inhabit such as schools, homes, and day cares are typically noisy. To better understand vocabulary development, we need to understand the effects of background noise on word learning. To gain this understanding, a cross-disciplinary approach between researchers in the language and hearing sciences in partnership with parents, educators, and clinicians is ideal. Through this approach we can identify characteristics of effective vocabulary instruction that take into account the background noise present in children’s learning environments. Furthermore, we can identify characteristics of children who are likely to struggle with learning words in noisy environments. For example, differences in vocabulary knowledge, verbal working memory abilities, and attention skills will likely influence children’s ability to learn words in the presence of background noise. These children require effective interventions to support their vocabulary development which subsequently should support their ability to process and learn language in noisy environments. Overall, this cross-disciplinary approach will inform theories of language development and inform educational and intervention practices designed to support children’s vocabulary development.

Graphical/Visual Abstract and Caption

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Much of what we know about children’s vocabulary development is based on studies in quiet laboratory environments. However, everyday environments typically include background noise. We must understand the effect of background noise on word learning to implement effective educational and intervention practices.

1. INTRODUCTION

Researchers have made great strides in understanding how children learn words (see Hoff, 2013 for a review). These findings inform theoretical frameworks which, in turn, inform educational and clinical practices. Understanding how to effectively support word learning in children has important implications as vocabulary knowledge provides the foundation for literacy skills and academic knowledge throughout the school years (Kaiser & Roberts, 2011; Pace et al., 2019). In their everyday lives, children learn words in complex multi-sensory contexts with rich social interactions (Horst, 2013; Tomasello, 2000). Some aspects of these contexts support word learning, discussed below, and other aspects of these contexts hinder word learning, such as visual and auditory distractors (e.g., Reed et al., 2017).

In this article we highlight one under-researched aspect of children’s vocabulary development, namely their ability to learn words in the presence of background noise. To date, much of what we know about word learning is based on research in quiet laboratory settings. However, the spaces where children spend most of their waking hours – homes, day cares, and schools – are typically not quiet (Crandell & Smaldino, 2000). The types of noises in these environments are varied including other talkers, movement of people in the space (e.g., chairs scraping the floor), media and electronics (e.g., computers, phones, televisions), ventilation systems, and outside traffic. The intensity level of this background noise is varied, but is often louder than typical conversational speech (Cruckley et al., 2011; Manlove & Vernon-Feagans, 2001).

Observational data suggests that background noise negatively affects children’s broader language, literacy, and cognitive development (Evans & Maxwell, 1997; Jamieson et al., 2004; Shield & Dockrell, 2003). Additionally, recently researchers have assessed children’s ability to learn words in real classroom environments (e.g., Weisberg et al., 2015; Dickison et al., 2019). However, to understand the mechanisms through which background noise affects word learning, these classroom studies must be paired with dynamic experimental tasks during which we systematically alter the components of the background noise. Currently, there is notable, but limited research implementing these experimental word-learning tasks in controlled background noise (Avivi-Reich et al., 2020; Dombroski & Newman, 2014; Han et al., 2016, 2019; McMillan & Saffran, 2016; Pittman, 2008; Riley & McGregor, 2012). Some of these studies demonstrate negative effects of background noise on word learning. However, other studies do not demonstrate differences in word learning when background noise is present or absent. These varied results are due to differences in methodology included the characteristics of the background noise, such as type and level of noise; the characteristics of the word learning task, such as how words are taught and how learning is assessed; and the characteristics of the participants, such as their age and language abilities. Of note, currently very few studies exist that investigate the process of learning words in background noise across multiple sessions. However, multiple session studies are important to understand how children build robust representations of words and add those words to their receptive and productive vocabularies.

To understand the mechanisms through which background noise affects word learning, we need researchers across relevant fields to conduct collaborative, systematic, multi-study investigations. To effectively address real-world challenges, researchers should partner with parents, educators, and clinicians when conducting these investigations. Because we currently lack these larger systematic investigations, we also lack a thorough understanding of how individual factors dynamically interact with the various components of background noise to affect children’s word learning. Internal factors such as the child’s verbal working memory skills, attention skills, and current language knowledge will likely affect what they learn and later remember from the content of language input presented in background noise (see McCreery et al., 2017, 2019, 2020; Walker et al., 2019). External factors, including the type, intensity, and location of the background noise relative to the target language input will all contribute to the acoustic access the child has to that input (Garadat & Litovsky, 2007; Johnstone & Litovsky, 2006; Leibold & Buss, 2013).

Understanding how word learning is affected by the dynamic relationship between background noise and children’s internal factors is not an easy task. One reason for the current lack of knowledge is that it is difficult to quantify the complex listening environments that children inhabit. The noise components of these environments are variable on a daily or even hourly basis. Furthermore, individual factors may interact with environmental factors in complex ways, and this interaction will likely change across development. However, gaining an understanding of the interaction between internal and external factors is important to support word learning in all children. Gaining this understanding is especially important to support children who are likely to struggle with word learning in background noise. This includes, but is not limited to, children who are hard of hearing, children with developmental language disorder, children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autistic children, and children with intellectual disabilities (e.g., McCreery et al., 2019; Schafer, Traber, et al., 2014).

Critically, there is a large research-to-practice gap in that research findings from laboratory settings are often not implemented in real-world instruction and interventions (Curran et al., 2022; Runesson Kempe, 2019). One key solution to this problem is for researchers to engage in more practice-to-research investigations in which insights from parents, educators, and clinicians about real-world challenges drive research questions. Through partnerships between researchers across relevant fields and these key stakeholders we can: 1. Understand mechanistically how various components of background noise affect word learning. 2. Understand characteristics of children who are most likely to struggle with word learning in background noise, and 3. Identify how to adapt educational and clinical practices to support word learning based on the background noise present in children’s learning environments. Notably, collaborative partnerships between key stakeholders and researchers are essential to identify adaptions that effectively address real-world challenges, are feasible to implement, and, thus, are likely to be implemented in real world practice. As an initial step towards achieving these goals, in the current paper we highlight findings from the language and hearing sciences that inform a larger systematic investigation of the effects of background noise on word learning. We conclude with a call to action for researchers to design and implement systematic multi-study investigations in partnerships with parents, educators, and clinicians.

2. LANGUAGE SCIENCES

Learning a word involves learning the form (i.e., the phonemes of a word and their order), learning the word meaning, and learning the link between the two (Gupta & Tisdale, 2009). When a child perceives an unfamiliar word (e.g., badger), this can trigger the formation of initial representations of the form, meaning, and link. This process is known as fast mapping (Kucker et al., 2015). These initial representations typically are short lasting and imprecise. For example, after a conversation about badgers, the child may have an imprecise phonological representation of the form (e.g., ba), and only a cursory understanding of the word meaning (Horst & Samuelson, 2008; Munro et al., 2012). Most word learning studies focus on fast mapping, which is only the first stage of word learning (Wojcik, 2013).

To develop precise representations of forms linked to rich meanings, children must be exposed to the word many times across multiple experiences through the process of slow mapping (McGregor et al., 2007; Munro et al., 2012). This process is essential for the child to add the word to her receptive and productive vocabularies. For example, every time a parent reads a book about badgers to their child, the child can refine and build upon form, meaning, and link representations (Flack et al., 2018). Early in the word learning process, the child may be able to correctly point to a picture of a badger when asked. However, it is not until after many presentations that the child can retrieve and produce the form correctly (e.g., Look dad, it’s a badger!) (McGregor et al., 2007). Similarly, across presentations the child slowly refines her understanding of word meaning. For example, the child not only learns what a badger is, but can also learn what badgers eat, and how they are similar to and different from other animals (Waxman & Gelman, 2009). Additionally, across presentations the child slowly refines her understanding of the form-meaning link (Gershkoff-Stowe et al., 2006). After she first learns about badgers, she may call a skunk a badger. However, over time she will learn which animals the form, badger, does and does not apply to.

Through language research we have gained an understanding of internal and external factors that affect a child’s ability to learn and refine word forms, meanings, and their links during the slow mapping process. Specifically, child-level factors that are positively related to word learning in quiet environments include, but are not limited to, verbal working memory skills, current vocabulary knowledge, and executive function skills (e.g., Archibald, 2017; Gordon et al., 2022; Kapa & Erikson, 2020; Wagovich, 2020). We also have gained an understanding of external factors that support word learning such as visual cues (e.g., adult eye gaze, Cetincelik et al., 2021), contingent responsiveness of conversation partners (Roseberry et al., 2014), and the timing of form and object presentations (Clerkin & Smith, 2022; Yu & Smith, 2011). With regards to educational and clinical practices, we have identified aspects of instruction that support robust word learning. For example, Beck and colleagues (2013) developed a framework of evidence-based practice to effectively support word learning, known as rich vocabulary instruction. Within this framework, children should be explicitly taught information about words and should be exposed to the same words across multiple experiences or lessons (McGregor et al., 2007). To support learning of forms, children should have opportunities to both hear and produce them. To support learning of meanings children should have opportunities to discuss rich meaning information, including how a word relates to other words, and have opportunities to hear and use the word in a variety of relevant contexts (e.g., storybooks, conversations, science lessons). All of these strategies to support learning form and meaning information can also support the learning of form-meaning links.

What has been missing from our understanding of the slow mapping process is how the background noise in children’s naturalistic environments affects their ability to create and refine representations of forms, meanings, and links. Background noise is likely to affect a child’s ability to develop a phonologically precise representation of the form as the noise can obscure the speech-sounds that comprise the form (Riley & McGregor, 2012). Background noise can potentially affect a child’s ability to learn word meanings when that meaning information is presented either visually or verbally (Han et al., 2019; McMillan & Saffran, 2016). For concrete referents, meaning information is often presented visually, such as a picture of a badger. Although background noise does not limit children’s access to visual information, it taxes cognitive processes, and can affect children’s ability to process and remember this visual information (i.e., the irrelevant sound effect, Lecompte, 1995). Additionally, for words with more concreate meanings (e.g., badger) and words with more abstract meanings (e.g., habitat) much of the meaning information is presented verbally. For example, meaning information about badgers can include what badgers eat, where they live, and whether they make good pets or not. Notably, form-meaning links are established and refined through experiences during which form and meaning information is presented simultaneously (Escudero et al., 2016; Smith & Yu, 2008; Yurovsky & Frank, 2015). Because background noise affects children’s ability to process form and meaning information, it can also negatively affect children’s ability to link forms and meanings (McMillan & Saffran, 2016).

In sum, from the languages sciences we know a lot about children’s ability to learn words during the fast-mapping process. We are currently building more knowledge about children’s ability to refine representations of words throughout the slow-mapping process. We also know about internal and external factors that affect word learning. However, because we currently lack a nuanced understanding of how background noise affects word learning during slow mapping, we lack recommendations for teachers and clinicians in how to modify lessons based on the background noise in children’s learning environments. Specifically, we do not understand how external factors should be modified to support learners in general, and how to support children who are likely to struggle to learn words in background noise.

3. HEARING SCIENCES

In the hearing sciences there is a robust literature showing the diverse effects of background noise on speech recognition in children, from simple consonant-vowel (CV) speech sounds, to words, to sentences (Bonino et al., 2013; Buss et al., 2022; Johnson, 2000; Leibold & Buss, 2013; Lewis et al., 2016; Neuman et al., 2010). Notably, this literature focuses on children’s ability to recognize known speech sounds and words rather than their ability to learn unfamiliar words. Through this literature, we have gained an understanding of the external and internal factors that are related to children’s ability to recognize known speech in background noise.

Various aspects of the background noise affect children’s speech recognition and processing. A consistent finding from this literature is that younger children need more favourable signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) to achieve similar speech recognition accuracy as older children and adults (Corbin et al., 2016). More favourable SNRs provide a more intense (i.e., louder) target speech relative to the background noise, and therefore the target speech is easier for children to understand. The type of background noise is another key factor. Background noise generated by other talkers (e.g., a noisy restaurant) negatively affects speech recognition in children more than other types of background noise (Leibold & Buss, 2013). This is because background speech and target speech have overlapping frequency (i.e., pitch of the sound) and intensity (i.e., how loud the sound is) components. Also, background speech engages the linguistic system, making it more difficult to segregate and focus on the target speech. Another key factor is the relative spatial location of the target speech and the background noise. Consider a classroom: the target talker – the teacher – is often located in front of the child. The background noise generated by other children and objects (e.g., air conditioning vents) often surround the child. When spatially separated, the target and background noise generate different acoustic cues at each ear. This allows children to differentiate the location of the target and background noise and improves their speech recognition performance, known as spatial release from masking (Garadat & Litovsky, 2007).

Internal factors, such as language knowledge, working memory abilities, and attention skills affect a child’s ability to recognize target speech in background noise (McCreery et al., 2017, 2019, 2020; Walker et al., 2019). Typically, these skills are less developed in younger children; however, cognitive abilities and linguistic knowledge differ across individuals and change within individuals across development (Cowan, 2012; Kahneman, 1973). Therefore, the extent to which children can rely on their language and cognitive abilities to process speech in noisy environments is variable. Notably, children can use linguistic cues in the target speech, such as semantic context, to improve speech recognition in the presence of background noise (Smiljanic & Sladen, 2013). A low-context sentence such as, “That is a badger”, offers few cues to predict the final word. In contrast, a high-context sentence such as, “That animal in the forest is a badger”, narrows the probable choices for the final word. Children’s ability to leverage this additional contextual or semantic information – based on their language and cognitive abilities – will directly support their speech recognition in noisy environments. This finding highlights an interesting interaction between internal and external factors. Children with less language knowledge and poorer verbal working memory skills will be more vulnerable to the negative effects of background noise because they are less able to leverage the additional contextual cues in speech.

Although children can develop strategies to support speech recognition in noise, these strategies come at a cognitive cost. The term often used to describe this cost, listening effort, reflects the engagement of cognitive resources needed to understand speech (Peelle, 2018; Ronnberg et al., 2013). Indeed, understanding speech in noise is a cognitively taxing task: children need to separate the target speech from the background noise, focus attention on the target speech and inhibit attention to the background noise, and rely on their various linguistic systems (e.g., semantic and syntactic knowledge) to identify the words in the target speech. It is within this research space that language and hearing sciences intersect. Specifically, the intensity, type, and location of background noise will define the level of difficulty of a listening environment. The language and cognitive skills an individual child possess will influence their ability to rely on those skills to support speech recognition and downstream language processes, such as word learning. Therefore, in the same classroom environment, children will vary in the listening effort they engage in to understand and learn from target speech. Classrooms, and other learning contexts, with more favourable listening environments are likely to be supportive of learning in a variety of children. In contrast, classrooms with poorer listening environments are likely to negatively affect the learning of some children more than others.

In sum, from the hearing sciences we know a lot about how aspects of the listening environment and individual differences in language and cognitive abilities affect children’s ability to recognize speech in noise. However, currently we lack a nuanced understanding of how these factors affect children’s ability to learn words in noise. Additionally, we know a lot about the developmental changes in children’s ability to process familiar speech in noise, but we know little of how the ability to learn words in noise changes across development.

4. A CROSS-DISCIPLINARY APPROACH

The current article is a call to action for researchers to conduct systematic multi-study investigations in partnership with key stakeholders to determine how various components of background noise affect word learning in children across a variety of ages and abilities. For researchers to design studies that identify effective educational and clinical practices, it is important to consider the real-world challenges that teachers, clinicians, and parents face. For example, understanding how the acoustics of a learning environment disrupt, or facilitate, learning can inform structural changes in the environment. Both reducing machine noise through updating systems (e.g., heating and cooling) as well as reducing echoes by adding soft surfaces such as rugs or curtains are effective strategies to improve room acoustics (Crandell & Smaldino, 2000). However, these efforts require funding and are often outside of a teacher or clinician’s control. Similarly, the intensity of background noise created by other students can be changed to a degree. However, the goal is not for children to become silent learners. Interactive hands-on learning and play provide many benefits for children (Weisberg et al., 2013).

Overall, the goal of this cross-disciplinary effort should be to identify the most effective educational and clinical practices that support children’s vocabulary development given these real-world challenges. In addition to informing general practices that support vocabulary development in all children, a key goal should be to identify and effectively support the vocabulary development of children who struggle with learning words in background noise. If we do not identify children who struggle with learning language in background noise and provide effective interventions, these children are likely to fall further and further behind in their language and academic knowledge in comparison to peers. Our current research about the characteristics of children who struggle with learning words in quiet and struggle with processing familiar speech in noise, reviewed above, inform hypotheses about which children are likely to struggle the most with learning words in background noise. However, we need larger systematic investigations that vary the intensity, type, and location of background noise and include sufficient measures of children’s individual abilities to understand which children will likely struggle with word learning given their real-world classroom environments.

Given all this, to inform best practices it is important that researchers identify approaches to optimally support word learning within real-world environments (Glasgow et al., 2014). Through continued partnerships between researchers, parents, educators, and clinicians, we can identify the strategies that are most likely to support word learning in background noise. We may find that teaching strategies that optimally support word learning in quiet laboratory settings need to be changed or modified to optimally support learning in settings with background noise. As one example, in quiet environments spaced exposures, in which presentations of a word are spaced across time, support word learning and retention better than massed exposures, in which presentations of a word are presented close together in time (Gordon, 2020). However, when the acoustic components of a word are obscured by background noise, multiple presentations close together in time, as well as spaced presentations across time, may be important to support the child’s ability to perceive and learn the word.

To effectively support language development in individual children via language interventions, we should consider how to support their ability to learn new content in the presence of background noise. For example, providing opportunities for word learning in quieter settings (e.g., clinic space, one-on-one time with a parent) provides children with a more optimal environment to learn language. Building initial representations of words in quiet settings should, in turn, support children’s ability to build on these initial representations when presented with the words in noise. For example, a child who first learns the word form, badger, in a quiet setting may have a robust enough representation of the form to link it to meaning information that is presented during a lesson about badgers in a relatively noisy classroom. Another intervention to support children’s ability to build representations of words includes remote-microphone systems. Remote microphones are designed to improve the signal-to-noise ratio and, thus, provide better access to the teacher’s language input (Anderson & Goldstein, 2004; Schafer, Florence, et al., 2014). Remote microphones are often used by children who are deaf or hard of hearing. However, there is recent evidence that they can support children with typical hearing who struggle with language learning, and thus, struggle with processing speech in background noise (Schafer et al., 2013, 2019; Schafer, Traber, et al., 2014). Overall, we need more evidence via experimental and intervention research to understand how to use these strategies most effectively to optimally support individual children’s ability to learn information about words in noisy environments.

Conclusion

It is vital that our theoretical frameworks on children’s vocabulary development, and educational and clinical practices built on these frameworks, take into account components of children’s real-world learning environments. Children’s learning environments are complex. This paper highlights how background noise can influence vocabulary development and how characteristics of the background noise and internal factors may modulate this relation. We also highlight potential factors that may place certain children at risk for reduced vocabulary learning in noise. Through the combined efforts of researchers in the hearing and language sciences and through partnerships with parents, educators, and clinicians, we can gain this understanding. Overall, this approach allows us to support vocabulary and academic development in all children.

Funding Information

The authors are currently collaborating on an NIH-funded study supported by NICHD R01HD100439 (TGC) with a subaward to Boys Town National Research Hospital (KRG).

Footnotes

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest at the time of publication.

Contributor Information

Katherine R. Gordon, Boys Town National Research Hospital

Tina M. Grieco-Calub, Rush University

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