Speech Recognition Training in Children With Hearing Loss
Condition: Hearing Loss
MeSH terms: Hearing Loss; Deafness
Study type: Interventional
Phase: Phase 1

Summary: 
      clEAR's auditory brain training has been shown to be effective in improving childrens'
      abilities to recognize the speech of generic talkers in a laboratory setting. In the proposed
      research, the researchers will build upon these results and assess the extent to which
      auditory brain training delivered via the web enhances children's abilities to recognize the
      speech of a potential classroom teacher and diminishes their communication challenges that
      are associated with significant hearing loss. First, investigators will conduct focus groups
      with children who have undergone training with the research version of clEAR's pediatric
      games, then they will recode the games from LabView to Java Script, making changes in the
      games in response to the focus group comments, and finally, they will collect data from 20
      children to assess whether web-based auditory brain training improves their abilities to
      recognize the speech of their (hypothetical) upcoming school year's classroom teacher.
    

Detailed description: 
      Imagine that someday, children with hearing loss can prepare for an upcoming school year by
      playing computer games with their new teacher's voice throughout the summer. Then, on the
      first day of class, children would have that "Oprah Winfrey effect", the sense that they know
      the teacher. Children would be able to recognize their teacher's voice much better than they
      would have otherwise, and importantly, they would experience less anxiety because of the
      talker familiarity effect. clEAR is making that "someday" a reality today. clEAR has created
      a new web-based clinical tool for audiologists and teachers to provide customized auditory
      brain training to their patients (www.clearforears.com). Auditory brain training includes
      traditional analytic and synthetic training as well as training to develop those auditory
      cognitive skills that are necessary to decode spoken language regardless of the content
      (i.e., auditory working memory, auditory attention, and auditory processing speed). The
      centerpiece of the clEAR website is a set of auditory brain training games that patients
      play, with oversight and coaching from their hearing healthcare provider or from one of
      clEAR's inhouse audiologists. Currently, clEAR caters to adult patients, and the games
      require some reading ability and a vocabulary that includes the most common words of the
      English language (N=800 words). clEAR has been enrolling paying adult subscribers since May
      of 2017. In the laboratory, a research version of pediatric games is being tested. The
      pediatric games are "childfriendly" and require only a limited vocabulary and no reading
      skills. In this Phase 1, the investigators will first conduct focus groups with 10 children
      who have undergone training with the research version of clEAR's pediatric games, then they
      will recode the games from LabView to Java Script, making changes in the games in response to
      the focus group comments, and finally, they will collect data from 20 children to assess
      whether web-based auditory brain training improves their abilities to recognize the speech of
      their (hypothetical) upcoming school year's classroom teacher. The experimental design will
      be a within-subjects A1-A2-B1-B2 design, where children will serve as their own controls.
      Participants will be tested two times before training with a one-week interval separating the
      test sessions (A1 and A2), to establish a baseline performance, and then immediately after
      training (B1) to establish immediate gains and three weeks later to assess whether gains
      begin to decline following training (B2). All testing and training will occur during the
      summer so the experimental results will not be confounded by benefits possibly accrued
      through school-related activities. Children will complete a total of 16 hours of training and
      will follow the same schedule (i.e., play the games in a prescribed order and for a set
      amount of time each). Outcome measures will come from a comprehensive speech perception test
      battery, questionnaires, and from data collected during training and stored on the children's
      training tablets. In Phase II, the pediatric games will be transferred to the clEAR website
      and develop their commercial potential.
    

Intervention name(s): clEAR auditory training
Intervention type(s): Behavioral
Intervention description(s): Children play auditory brain training computer games
Intervention model: Single Group Assignment
Intervention model description: Within subjects A1 - A2 - B1 - B2 design
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Treatment
Keywords: Auditory training; Children with hearing loss