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Would this suggest that having background noise on in your home (e.g. music, TV, podcast, etc.) is beneficial? Our home is generally pretty quiet. I occasional

Would this suggest that having background noise on in your home (e.g. music, TV, podcast, etc.) is beneficial? Our home is generally pretty quiet. I occasionally listen to music, but we only have the TV on when we're actually watching something (which isn't often). Compared to growing up (and even still today) my Mom would leave live TV on constantly in the background. Obviously we still have mental stimulation through work, cooking, board games, reading, etc., but not much audio (aside from conversing and the occasional video game/TV show).

mrangle 3y ago
Yes, in theory. Not so much noise, but speech. And specifically speech that you are engaged with, most likely. Versus speech to which you aren't paying much attention. Normal child development is uniquely contingent on the child hearing a lot of speech. It is known that unless deaf people get cochlear implants at the youngest possible age, their intellectual development risks being stunted due to lack of heard language. Which begs the hypothesis that a positive effect of hearing aids in prevention of cognitive decline is due to maintenance of heard speech. A related hypothesis might be that any correlation between a high degree of social activity and less cognitive decline is, at least in part, due to the same mechanism. As could be any correlation to playing chess, etc, due to this hidden variable.
- TRiG_Ireland 3y ago
  Children need to be exposed to language. It doesn't need to be a spoken language. Deaf people can do very well.
gumby 3y ago
> my Mom would leave live TV on constantly in the background. What on earth? I've never heard of anyone doing this. Why would one want this? I know some people do that with the radio which I also consider really annoying.
- tanseydavid 3y ago
  Both of my parents (long ago divorced) do this. I have always thought of it as a generational thing.
autoexec 3y ago
I saw that white noise was suspected of increasing the risk of dementia. I wonder if hearing aids improving the clarity of background noise might offset that risk.

mrangle 3y ago

Yes, in theory. Not so much noise, but speech. And specifically speech that you are engaged with, most likely. Versus speech to which you aren't paying much attention. Normal child development is uniquely contingent on the child hearing a lot of speech. It is known that unless deaf people get cochlear implants at the youngest possible age, their intellectual development risks being stunted due to lack of heard language. Which begs the hypothesis that a positive effect of hearing aids in prevention of cognitive decline is due to maintenance of heard speech. A related hypothesis might be that any correlation between a high degree of social activity and less cognitive decline is, at least in part, due to the same mechanism. As could be any correlation to playing chess, etc, due to this hidden variable.

TRiG_Ireland 3y ago
Children need to be exposed to language. It doesn't need to be a spoken language. Deaf people can do very well.

gumby 3y ago

> my Mom would leave live TV on constantly in the background. What on earth? I've never heard of anyone doing this. Why would one want this? I know some people do that with the radio which I also consider really annoying.

tanseydavid 3y ago
Both of my parents (long ago divorced) do this. I have always thought of it as a generational thing.

autoexec 3y ago

I saw that white noise was suspected of increasing the risk of dementia. I wonder if hearing aids improving the clarity of background noise might offset that risk.