Development of Functional Spatial Hearing in Reverberation

Early Phase 1

Recruiting

• Conditions: Spatial Hearing Development
• Interventions: Other: High-Reverberation; Other: Low-Reverberation

• Registration Number: NCT05815537
• Lead Sponsor: Father Flanagan's Boys' Home

Brief Summary

The goal of the clinical trial study (Phase 0) is to map out the developmental trajectory of functional spatial hearing abilities in reverberant environments for children with normal hearing between the ages of 6 and 18 years, and to understand the inter-relationships between the three perceptual abilities: auditory object size formation, spatial acuity, and spatial unmasking during typical development. Children are asked to perform psychoacoustic tasks when the auditory stimuli are processed to present in virtual acoustic environments (1) with no reverberation and (2) with one of the two levels of reverberation that emulate everyday indoor environments. The intervention of this clinical study is in the random assignment of one of the two reverberant environments. Researchers will compare these children with a group of normal-hearing adults to anchor matured performances.

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Study First Submitted: 2023-04-04
• Study First Submitted QC: 2023-04-04
• Study First Posted: 2023-04-18
• Study Start: 2024-01-01
• Status Verified: 2024-03
• Last Update Submitted: 2024-03-01
• Last Update Posted: 2024-03-04
• Primary Completion: 2025-06-30
• Study Completion: 2025-06-30

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: RECRUITING
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 120

Inclusion Criteria

• All individuals within age limits who are typically developing with normal hearing who pass 25 dB HL from 250 Hz to 8000 Hz.

Exclusion Criteria

• Individuals who fail hearing screen as described above.
• Individuals who have a diagnosed intellectual developmental disability

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
High-Reverberation	High-Reverberation	Participants perform psychoacoustic tasks under a high-reverberant environment and a control environment without reverberation.
Low-Reverberation	Low-Reverberation	Participants perform psychoacoustic tasks under a low-reverberant environment and a control environment without reverberation.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Auditory Object Size (Apparent Source Width)	Year 1-3	Psychoacoustic measure of the smallest detectable change in width of an auditory image in degree angular span in the horizontal plane
Spatial Unmasking (Minimum angular separation)	Year 1-3	Psychoacoustic measure of the smallest angular separation to gain a target speech benefit in the presence of distracting speech maskers
Spatial Acuity (Minimum audible angle)	Year 1-3	Psychoacoustic measure of the smallest detectable angular separation between two auditory objects

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Boys Town National Research Hospital; 🇺🇸 Omaha, Nebraska, United States