ListenFuture-Listening for Their Future: Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Adolescents

Heikki Löppönen

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Hearing Disorders and Deafness

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT07416292

5551909

Details and patient eligibility

About

ListenFuture, a nation-wide multidisciplinary project, brings new knowledge on complex associations between listening, cognition, language, literacy, and psychosocial wellbeing in deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) adolescents. Earlier findings indicate that DHH adolescents remain at a risk to achieving age-appropriate skills. The associations among these skills can also be language-dependent. The investigators use behavioral methods and questionnaires. The investigators study speech perception in noise, listening, and listening-related fatigue to reveal how DHH adolescents cope in today's noisy environment. The investigators study cognitive skills and executive functions, spoken language and literacy skills to find out the current state-of-knowledge. The investigators study psychosocial wellbeing, school burnout and factors associated with them. The investigators will utilize supervised and interpretable machine learning to analyse the performance domains that could best predict the outcomes of DHH adolescents. The investigators expect our project to have broad societal impact for DHH adolescents, healthcare, school, and other stakeholders.

Full description

ListenFuture provides comprehensive insights into challenges deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) adolescents face in speech perception, language, and literacy, skills essential for use, creation, and integration of information. The investigators will explore the following skills and their complex associations: 1) auditory speech perception, 2) cognitive skills and executive functions, 3) spoken language, 4) literacy, and 5) psychosocial wellbeing and school burnout. The investigators will analyse the demographic, cognitive, speech perception and language processing domains that best predict the outcomes. ListenFuture has the potential to enhance the wellbeing and participation of DHH adolescents and provide valuable information for intervention services and policy making.

Enrollment: 256 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 11 to 16 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

1. Group 1

   - Bilateral mild to complete hearing loss

2. Group 2:

   • Typical hearing (PTA<20dB)
   • Typical cognitive, linguistic and literacy development

Exclusion criteria

Group 1 and Group 2:

• heart conditions
• developmental brain disorders
• chromosome anomalies
• severe inner ear anomalies
• impairments in both distance senses hearing and vision

Group 2:

- concerns regarding attention and psychosocial wellbeing

Trial design

256 participants in 2 patient groups

children with hearing loss

Description:

children with mild-complete hearing loss

children with typical hearing

Description:

normal hearing