Speech Understanding and Listening Effort Benefits of Hearing Instruments

Sonova AG30 enrolled

Overview

The goal of this clinical study is to investigate the benefits of hearing instrument use in adults with hearing loss. The main questions it aims to answer are: Does hearing instrument use improve speech understanding and listening effort amount people with hearing loss? Researchers will compare varying models of hearing instruments to see how speech understanding and listening effort are impacted. Participants will be asked to wearing varying hearing instruments and participate in lab-based activities to evaluate their speech understanding, listening effort, and subjective preference.

Study Type

INTERVENTIONAL

Allocation

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Enrollment

Conditions

Hearing Loss, Bilateral

Interventions

hearing instruments

Eligibility

Sex: ALLMin age: 18 YearsMax age: 95 Years

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

Inclusion Criteria: * Adult 18-95 years * N3 or N4 hearing loss * Experienced hearing aid user * English fluency * Cognitively able to complete complex listening tasks Exclusion Criteria: * Outside of specified age range * Vulnerable populations * Hearing within normal limits or otherwise not appropriate for hearing instruments under study * Inability to read, write, or speak English * Inability to complete complex listening tasks

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

Speech intelligibility as assessed by the Coordinate Response Measure (CRM) Task

During the CRM task (Bolia et al., 2000), participants are presented with a phrase detailing the following identifiers: target, color, and digit. They must listen for a target name and respond with the corresponding color and digit. Speech intelligibility performance is assessed based on accuracy, or percent correct across all trials conducted in a given condition.

Time frame: Data is collected during the second lab visit for each participant, approximately 2 weeks after study enrollment. The duration of the study visit including testing is approximately 2.5 hours.

Secondary Outcomes

Listening Effort as assessed by the Adaptive Categorical Listening Effort Scaling (ACALES)

The ACALES is an adaptive measure of listening effort where the target and interfering background signals are adapted according to participant feedback. Following the target presentation, participants rate listening effort on a 14-point scale