Understanding Individual Listening Strategies

Not Applicable

• Conditions: Hearing Loss, Sensorineural

• Registration Number: NCT06962540
• Lead Sponsor: Northwestern University

Brief Summary

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if hearing aid settings that are customized to individual listening strategies result in better speech understanding than non-customized hearing aid settings. The main question it aims to answer is:

Do customized hearing aid settings result in better speech understanding?

Researchers will compare hearing aid settings that match individual listening strategy to a general setting.

Participants will:

Wear hearing aids for a 2-hour visit to our laboratory. Listen to some sentences in noise and repeat the sentences they hear, with two different hearing aid settings Listen to some sentences in noise and rate how understandable they think those sentences are, with two different hearing aid settings

Detailed Description

Participants will complete standard clinical hearing evaluations and a listening profile test to evaluate their individual listening strategy. Hearing aids will then be programmed either based on their clinical hearing evaluations alone using typical hearing aid settings or based on their hearing test with settings further adjusted to account for their individual listening strategies.

Study Timeline

• Study First Submitted: 2024-12-02
• Status Verified: 2025-04
• Study Start: 2025-04-18
• Study First Submitted QC: 2025-04-29
• Last Update Submitted: 2025-04-29
• Study First Posted: 2025-05-08
• Last Update Posted: 2025-05-08
• Primary Completion: 2026-03
• Study Completion: 2026-06

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: ENROLLING_BY_INVITATION
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 30

Inclusion Criteria

• Sensorineural hearing loss

Exclusion Criteria

• Montreal Cognitive Assessment < 23 points

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: CROSSOVER

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Speech recognition	Outcome measure is collected during the intervention, a two hour visit to the lab where they are wearing the hearing aids	Participants listen to and repeat sentences, they are scored based on the % correct of keywords they accurately repeat.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Speech Spatial Quality	Outcome measure is collected during the intervention, a two hour visit to the lab where they are wearing the hearing aids	Rate perceived intelligibility and quality on a scale of 0 to 10 with 10 generally being better

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Northwestern University; 🇺🇸 Evanston, Illinois, United States