Impact of Children’s Auditory Technology (iCAT): Short and long term effects of omnidirectional and adaptive/directional hearing aids and assistive listening devices in 6-to-11 year old children with mild-to-moderate hearing loss on key hearing and listening skills
Mild-to-moderate hearing loss
MMHL participants will receive: A) an omnidirectional OR an adaptive/directional hearing aid algorithm; and B) an assistive listening device (ALD) OR no ALD. When allocating the deaf children into these four groups, participants will be matched across groups based on age, sex, and hearing levels (pure tone averages). Furthermore, if the participant already has experience of using any assistive listening device (ALDs such as a remote microphone) for over a period of one year, they will be automatically allocated into one of the ALD groups during the randomisation process. To simplify the recruitment and matching of participants, the first 12 participants recruited will be identified as diverse across the matching criteria and will be designated into a single (double blinded) group. Once these 12 participants have been recruited and engaged into the trial, further recruited participants will be matched to this first group on the matching criteria and randomly allocated into another available group. Clinic availability will then naturally mix up the participants so that the first 12 participants to reach the stage of research visits at LU will be in different groups, and not just the initial first group. Participants are required to wear their study hearing aids full time (at least 8 hours per day average) during the duration of the study to remain compliant with the trial eligibility requirements. • Group 1: MMHL – omnidirectional hearing aids with no ALD • Group 2: MMHL – omnidirectional hearing aids with an ALD • Group 3: MMHL – adaptive/directional hearing aids with no ALD • Group 4: MMHL – adaptive/directional hearing aids with an ALD • Group 5: Control group- hearing controls with no auditory technology Double blinding will be applied to the hearing aid algorithm allocation. Double blinding includes the blinding of the participant and guardian, as well as the research team (Research Assistants, Trial Collaborators, Chief Investigator) at Lancaster University.
1. Aged 6-11 years old 2. With fluency in English 3. Who possess instructional comprehension, confirmed by their audiologist 4. At least one caregiver with English fluency for instructional comprehension for research visits at Lancaster University 5. Attending mainstream schools 6. Be able to wear their hair loose to enable us to access strands of natural hair and their scalp during fNIRS and EEG recordings MMHL participants: 1. With bilateral/symmetrical sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) 2. With a minimum of one year of hearing aid experience, confirmed by their audiologist and previous clinic notes 3. With a history of consistent hearing aid usage (minimum 6h/day) The participants may be multilingual, as long as both the child and at least one caregiver understand English to ensure informed consent, assent, and instructional comprehension. However, an interpreter can be utilised at audiology clinics when necessary to support families
1. Medical diagnosis of neurological, psychiatric, and/or attention deficits 2. History of ear surgeries Further exclusion criteria for hearing children (control participants) only: 3. Medical diagnosis of learning, language, developmental delays, or hearing difficulties/disorders 4. Hearing loss of mild, moderate, severe, or profound degree (above 20 dB HL at standard frequencies)