Pupillometry in children: a good method for assessing listening effort

The additional cognitive effort required during listening activity, for example in case of inadequate acoustic conditions, may lead to a general worsening of cognitive performances, especially in children, who are still developing adult-like language skills which may help them compensating for inaccurate speech recognition. For this reason, it is increasingly important to have a more objective method for assessing listening effort. Pupillometry could be a good solution for evaluating the effect that background noise has on children’ cognitive abilities, particularly in the case of hearing-impaired children. As it has been proved that eye pupil dilation can be considered a psychophysiological marker of cognitive effort, pupillometry may indeed be a practical and reliable method for this type of evaluation. This review aims to provide more information on this technique and how to use it when assessing listening effort in children.