Improving Perception of Speech in Noise in Children With Communication Disorders

Study Overview
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Brief Summary
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Smarty Ears has developed a prototype of an innovative therapeutic training system to improve speech perception in noise by training children on interrupted noise (which has silent intervals that allow for fragments of the target to be heard). The study will attempt to validate the technology and gather initial design feedback from clinicians and caregivers and from children with ASD and HL.

Detailed Description
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Recent evidence indicates that listening in interrupted noise can provide perceptual benefits, such as remapping the auditory environment and learning to use acoustic cues. The developed technology, uses adaptive listening training that automatically increases noise level difficulty as performance improves, and includes age appropriate rewards to maintain interest. The mobile app includes an initial and final screening, a training system that administers training via the child's own mobile device, and detailed performance dashboard. The study will attempt to validate the technology by gathering feedback from clinicians and caregivers and from children with ASD and HL.

Official Title
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Improving Perception of Speech in Noise in Children With Communication Disorders

Conditions
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Speech Perception

Intervention / Treatment
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* Other: Audiovisual speech training in noise for children


Participation Criteria
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Eligibility Criteria
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Inclusion Criteria: For all children: normal or corrected to normal vision. For children with typical development normal or corrected to normal vision + normal hearing. For children with HL Children must have at least one year experience with amplification (i.e Hearing aids) and no threshold> 70 dB. Exclusion Criteria: To participate, all children must be able to comply with directions and engage in tasks that require some expressive language response on the language and cognitive measures (i.e. children who are considered to be in the word combinations or sentences expressive language phase; Tager-Flusberg et al., 2009).

Ages Eligible for Study
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Minimum Age: 8 Years
Maximum Age: 12 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study
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All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
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Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Study Plan
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How is the study designed?
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Design Details

Primary Purpose: Treatment
Allocation: Non-Randomized
Intervention Model: Sequential Assignment
Interventional Model Description: The model is ABA design, that is participants get an initial, pre-treatment noise assessment, then get individualized training, then get a post-noise assessment. This is designed to look for change from baseline after training.
Masking: None (Open Label)


Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| Experimental: Children with an autism spectrum disorder<br>The intervention as described above with children with an ASD. | Other: Audiovisual speech training in noise for children<br>* Children will participate in listening training in the form of an iPad app<br>|
| Experimental: Children with Hearing Loss<br> | Other: Audiovisual speech training in noise for children<br>* Children will participate in listening training in the form of an iPad app<br>|
| Experimental: Typically developing children with normal hearing acuity<br> | Other: Audiovisual speech training in noise for children<br>* Children will participate in listening training in the form of an iPad app<br>|

What is the study measuring?
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Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Daily training performance | Daily performance level based on words correct as a function of SNR and the average SNR over the course of training for 4 weeks | 5 days a week for 4 weeks (30 minutes/day) | 

 Terms related to the study
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Keywords Provided by Centre Hospitalier Valida
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ASD, speech in noise, Hearing Loss, speech-to-noise ratio