Customized auditory brain training for children with hearing loss

ABSTRACTImagine that somedaychildren with hearing loss can prepare for an upcoming school year by playing computer games with their new teacherandapos s voice throughout the summerThenon the first day of classchildren would have thatOprah Winfrey effectthe sense that they know the teacherChildren would be able to recognize their teacherandapos s voice much better than they would have otherwiseand importantlythey would experience less anxiety because of the talker familiarity effectclEAR is making thatsomedaya reality todayclEAR has created a new web based clinical tool for audiologists and teachers to provide customized auditory brain training to their patientswww clearforears comAuditory brain training includes traditional analytic and synthetic training as well as training to develop those auditory cognitive skills that are necessary to decode spoken language regardless of the contenti eauditory working memoryauditory attentionand auditory processing speedThe centerpiece of the clEAR website is a set of auditory brain training games that patients playwith oversight and coaching from their hearing healthcare provider or from one of clEARandapos s inhouse audiologistsCurrentlyclEAR caters to adult patientsand the games require some reading ability and a vocabulary that includes the most common words of the English languageNwordsclEAR has been enrolling paying adult subscribers since May ofIn the laboratorywe are testing a research version of pediatric gamesThe pediatric games arechildfriendlyand require only a limited vocabulary and no reading skillsIn this Phasewe will first conduct focus groups withchildren who have undergone training with the research version of clEARandapos s pediatric gamesthen we will recode the games from LabView to Java Scriptmaking changes in the games in response to the focus group commentsand finallywe will collect data fromchildren to assess whether web based auditory brain training improves their abilities to recognize the speech of theirhypotheticalupcoming school yearandapos s classroom teacherThe experimental design will be a within subjects AABBdesignwhere children will serve as their own controlsThey will be tested two times before training with a one week interval separating the test sessionsAand Ato establish a baseline performanceand then immediately after trainingBto establish immediate gains and three weeks later to assess whether gains begin to decline following trainingBAll testing and training will occur during the summer so the experimental results will not be confounded by benefits possibly accrued through school related activitiesChildren will complete a total ofhours of training and will follow the same schedulei eplay the games in a prescribed order and for a set amount of time eachOutcome measures will come from a comprehensive speech perception test batteryquestionnairesand from data collected during training and stored on the childrenandapos s training tabletsIn Phase IIwe will transfer the pediatric games to the clEAR website and develop their commercial potential PUBLIC HEALTH STATEMENT clEAR s auditory brain training has been shown to be effective in improving childrensabilities to recognize the speech of generic talkers in a laboratory settingIn the proposed researchwe will build upon these results and assess the extent to which auditory brain training delivered via the web enhances children s abilities to recognize the speech of a potential classroom teacher and diminishes their communication challenges that are associated with significant hearing lossFirstwe will conduct focus groups with children who have undergone training with the research version of clEAR s pediatric gamesthen we will recode the games from LabView to Java Scriptmaking changes in the games in response to the focus group commentsand finallywe will collect data fromchildren to assess whether web based auditory brain training improves their abilities to recognize the speech of theirhypotheticalupcoming school year s classroom teacher