Impact of Children’s Auditory Technology (iCAT): Impact of adaptive/directional hearing aids and assistive listening devices on classroom hearing and listening strategies in 6-to-11 year old children with mild-to-moderate hearing loss
Mild-to-moderate hearing loss
MMHL participants will be allocated to receive a study assisted listening device (ALD) OR no ALD. Any existing experienced users of ALDs will be placed in the ALD group. The remaining participants recruited will be matched across groups based on age, sex and hearing level (pure tone average). Participants will be randomized on REDCap, a GDPR compliant online database application. • Group 1: MMHL – omnidirectional hearing aid without ALD • Group 2: MMHL – omnidirectional hearing aid with ALD • Group 3: Control group - hearing controls with no auditory technology We will use two classroom scenarious during classroom activities in a naturalistic classroom lab: • Quiet: no noise played during classroom activities • Noisy: naturalistic classroom noise played during activities We will use different tasks where the talker is attended to or not. For example, the participant will be asked to attend to the teacher talking (attended talker), but not their talker peers (unattended talkers). • Clinic visit 1: MMHL participants will have a standard of care hearing assessment at their usual audiology clinic. • Clinic visit 2: At their usual audiology clinic, MMHL participants will be fitted with study devices - hearing aid with blinded algorithm and, if applicable, an assistive listening device (ALD). • Research visit 1: Within four to six weeks after their device fitting the participants will come to Lancaster University to complete research activities. • Research visit 2: Within one month from Research Visit 1 the participants will return to Lancaster University to do different research activities. • Clinic visit 2: MMHL participants will return to their usual audiology clinic for exiting from the study. During the exit of the study, participants will be given the choice to either continue with their trial hearing aids, algorithm, and/or ALD if provided one or resume to their previous model and configurations. Participants who did not receive an ALD during the study will
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 criterion 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)