Speech Understanding and Listening Effort Benefits of Hearing Instruments

Not Applicable

Recruiting

• Conditions: Hearing Loss, Bilateral

• Registration Number: NCT07116135
• Lead Sponsor: Sonova AG

Brief Summary

The goal of this clinical study is to investigate the benefits of hearing instrument use in adults with hearing loss. The main questions it aims to answer are:

Does hearing instrument use improve speech understanding and listening effort amount people with hearing loss? Researchers will compare varying models of hearing instruments to see how speech understanding and listening effort are impacted.

Participants will be asked to wearing varying hearing instruments and participate in lab-based activities to evaluate their speech understanding, listening effort, and subjective preference.

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Status Verified: 2025-01
• Study Start: 2025-02-05
• Study First Submitted: 2025-07-28
• Study First Submitted QC: 2025-08-04
• Last Update Submitted: 2025-08-04
• Study First Posted: 2025-08-11
• Last Update Posted: 2025-08-11
• Primary Completion: 2025-12
• Study Completion: 2025-12-01

Recruitment & Eligibility

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

Inclusion Criteria

• Adult 18-95 years
• N3 or N4 hearing loss
• Experienced hearing aid user
• English fluency
• Cognitively able to complete complex listening tasks

Exclusion Criteria

• Outside of specified age range
• Vulnerable populations
• Hearing within normal limits or otherwise not appropriate for hearing instruments under study
• Inability to read, write, or speak English
• Inability to complete complex listening tasks

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: SINGLE_GROUP

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Speech intelligibility as assessed by the Coordinate Response Measure (CRM) Task	Data is collected during the second lab visit for each participant, approximately 2 weeks after study enrollment. The duration of the study visit including testing is approximately 2.5 hours.	During the CRM task (Bolia et al., 2000), participants are presented with a phrase detailing the following identifiers: target, color, and digit.; They must listen for a target name and respond with the corresponding color and digit. Speech intelligibility performance is assessed based on accuracy, or percent correct across all trials conducted in a given condition.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Listening Effort as assessed by the Adaptive Categorical Listening Effort Scaling (ACALES)	Data is collected during the second lab visit for each participant, approximately 2 weeks after study enrollment. The duration of the study visit including testing is approximately 2.5 hours.	The ACALES is an adaptive measure of listening effort where the target and interfering background signals are adapted according to participant feedback. Following the target presentation, participants rate listening effort on a 14-point scale

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

University of South Florida Auditory Neurosciences & Technology Lab; 🇺🇸 Tampa, Florida, United States