Clinical Trial Details
— Status: Completed
Administrative data
| NCT number |
NCT04698356 |
| Other study ID # |
P01AG055365 |
| Secondary ID |
P01AG055365 |
| Status |
Completed |
| Phase |
N/A
|
| First received |
|
| Last updated |
|
| Start date |
April 9, 2021 |
| Est. completion date |
July 31, 2021 |
Study information
| Verified date |
May 2023 |
| Source |
University of Maryland, College Park |
| Contact |
n/a |
| Is FDA regulated |
No |
| Health authority |
|
| Study type |
Interventional
|
Clinical Trial Summary
With advancing age, adults experience increasing speech understanding difficulties in
challenging situations. Currently, speech-in-noise difficulties are rehabilitated by
providing hearing aids. For older normal-hearing adults, however, hearing devices do not
provide much benefit since these adults do not have a decreased hearing sensitivity. The goal
of the "Speech Perception with High Cognitive Demand" Project is to evaluate the benefit of a
new auditory-cognitive training paradigm. In order to provide maximal benefit for older,
normal-hearing adults, a validation of the new training materials is required. In a pilot
study, the investigators will evaluate the new auditory-cognitive training paradigm in 15
young, normal-hearing adults (18-30 years). Based on these results, the training paradigm can
be further optimized for older adults.
Description:
With advancing age, adults experience increasing speech understanding difficulties in
challenging situations, such as difficulty with understanding other persons in a noisy
restaurant. Speech-in-noise difficulties are typically rehabilitated by providing hearing
aids. For older normal-hearing adults, however, hearing devices do not provide much benefit
since these adults do not have a decreased hearing sensitivity. For these adults
communication difficulties persist in everyday life situations and can even lead to social
withdrawal, isolation, and depression.
A growing body of studies demonstrates that combined auditory-cognitive training paradigms
can offer speech-in-noise benefits to adults with hearing loss that could prevent the
consequences listed above (Ferguson & Henshaw, 2015; Lawrence et al., 2018). The goal of the
"Speech Perception with High Cognitive Demand" Project is to evaluate the benefit of a new
auditory-cognitive training paradigm for older normal-hearing adults. The investigators
developed an American English version of the Nottingham (UK) PLUS training paradigm in which
listeners are asked to focus and listen to one speaker while ignoring another speaker.
Although it cannot ensured that every participant will experience direct significant benefit
from the training, the paradigm is being designed to optimally enhance the possibility of
benefit: an adaptive procedure is employed in order to train each individual at their own
level and to make the task challenging, and a short-term memory component is added to the
original training paradigm to also enhance the cognitive skills of the participants. In
addition, the training is implemented on tablets rather than computers, making at-home
training possible (many older adults are more comfortable with tablets than laptops). This
way, not only the risk of COVID-19 for participants is minimized, but training is also
provided in a realistic setting which will ensure a better transfer of the trained skills to
daily communication situations.
In order to provide maximal benefit for older, normal-hearing adults, a validation of the new
training materials is however required, and the initial validation will be for younger adults
only. The investigators will evaluate the translated and adjusted sentences (from UK to
American English), the adaptive procedure, and the short-term memory component, in young,
normal-hearing adults (18-30 years). Based on the results of this pilot study, the sentences
and procedures of the training paradigm can be further optimized for older adults.
