Objective To compare the effects of different background sounds on the short-term memory（STM） of hearingimpaired children. Methods Under four different environments

namely quiet

soothing music

traffic noise

and speech noise

fifteen hearing-impaired children aged 3-7 were tested for the STM span of common object picture. The results were statistically analyzed.Results The STM capacity of hearing-impaired children in quiet

soothing music

traffic noise

and speech noise were 3.00（3.00-4.00）

3.00（2.00-3.00）

3.00（2.00-3.00） and 2.00（2.00）-2.00)

respectively. There were significant differences between the results of different environments

showing speech noise was significantly lower than that of soothing music and quiet environment（P<0.01）. There was no significant statistical difference between different genders or hearing compensation methods（P>0.05）. Conclusion Hearing-impaired children have STM deficits independent of gender and auditory compensation method. There is a correlation between the environment and STM

in which speech noise has an inhibitory effect

and other background sounds have no obvious effect.