Active clinical trials for "Auditory Perceptual Disorders"

Purpose: A research project will be conducted at the ADD ("Attention Deficit Disorder") Centre and Biofeedback Institute of Toronto to evaluate the feasibility of the Listening Project Protocol (LPP) intervention in individuals with difficulties with autonomic and/or behavioral regulation. The LPP is designed as a "neural exercise" to reduce auditory hypersensitivities, to improve auditory processing of speech, and to improve behavioral state regulation. These improvements should translate into increase feelings of safety and calmness, thereby promoting improvement in social behavior. Participants: 30 participants, males and females between ages 7-55 years, will be recruited for the study. Participants will be patients at the ADD Centre and Biofeedback Institute of Toronto. Procedures: Participants will be divided into 1 of 2 groups (1:1 ratio). Both groups will have a pre-intervention assessment #2, intervention, 1 week post intervention assessment and 1 month post intervention assessment. Group 2 will have an additional pre-intervention assessment session #1 (1 week previous to pre-intervention assessment #2) to assess the stability of the measures prior to starting the intervention. Pre-, post-, and 1 month followup assessment will include parent and/or self-report questionnaires, and measures of the individual's auditory processing ("SCAN"), affect recognition ("DARE" Dynamic Affect Recognition Evaluation), heart rate, prosody, "RSA" respiratory sinus arrhythmia (derived from non-invasive ECG recording), and middle ear transfer function ("MESAS" - Middle Ear Sound Absorption System).

Millions of elderly adults in the USA have age related hearing loss (ARHL), a malady that affects half of adults 60-69 years, and the majority of older adults. This hearing loss not only impacts communication and functional ability, but also is strongly associated with cognitive decline and decreased quality of life. This project aims to develop effective strategies to compensate and reverse this process through a deeper understanding of plasticity and adaptive auditory function, and how to engage it and harness it to remedy ARHL.

Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) affects 0.5-7% of the pediatric population. This disorder is responsible for a child's low hearing ability. The diagnosis of APD is difficult because of polymorphic symptoms possibly entangled with other difficulties (learning, communication, attention ...). There is currently no gold standard in the literature for diagnosing APD. Investigators opened multidisciplinary consultation for the children suspected of APD. The purpose of this study is to analyze the results of the multidisciplinary assessment performed on these children (audiometry, cortical auditory brainstem response (ABR), behavioral assessment, psychometric evaluation, genetic analysis) to the results of functional MRI (fMRI) at rest and in activation. The goal is to find radiological MRI-fMRI markers in these patients that improve the diagnosis of APD. Investigators will compare the f-MRI results between three groups of children in order to find specific radiological markers of APD : group 1 : children diagnosed with an Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) group 2 : children suspect of APD group 3 : children without APD (controls)

The purpose of this preliminary study is to help clarify our hypotheses for the longitudinal study by investigating the relationship between vocal cord paralysis and central auditory processes and thus the interpretation of auditory inputs into the central nervous system.

There are currently no cognitive tests that have been validated as screening tools for people with dementia and comorbid hearing loss. This is particularly important given the high prevalence of hearing impairment in older adults presenting to memory services and the risk of misdiagnosis of dementia in this population as outlined above. Cognitive tests validated in hearing impaired populations will also be important as outcome tools for interventional research aiming to find out if treating hearing loss may reduce dementia risk in the longer term.

The investigators assume that cochlear implants in this indication are not only effective but also cost-effective. The investigators' experimental protocol relies on real life therapeutic strategy, where a cochlear implant may be proposed once CROS and bone conductions systems have failed. Thus, all subjects enrolled in our study will try CROS and bone conduction devices. If these trials are ineffective, the remaining subjects will be randomized between two arms (cochlear implantation vs 6 months abstention followed by cochlear implantation). A comparative cost-utility analysis between the two arms, of medical consequences measured in terms of quality of life will identify a preference for a strategy. Specific binaural hearing measurements with respect to each treatment option (abstention, CROS, bone conduction device, cochlear implant) will also be collected.

The current study aimed to examine the effectiveness of a Computer-based auditory training (CBAT) intervention for children with Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD) by comparing the changes in auditory processing (AP) and functional listening skills of these children immediately post-intervention, to that of the untrained controls. The AP skills of the trained group were evaluated again at 3 months post-intervention to examine the sustainability of any improvements made from the CBAT intervention. I hypothesised that after intervention, children from the auditory training (AT) group would improve in their AP skills, and that improvement would be greater than the changes in AP skills of those untrained controls. I also hypothesised that the improvement made from the intervention would sustain for at least 3 months after the end of intervention. Finally, I examined if the training outcomes are predictable from any underlying factors such as the initial AP, language, or cognitive skills of these children.

Rehabilitation of dyslexic children with (cental) auditory processing disorder. The first group will receive the proposed program the arabic version of differential processing training program and the control group will receive the computer based auditory traing program (CBAT).

The purpose of this study is to learn more about how bilingual individuals process sound in challenging listening environments and how testing language may impact results on auditory processing assessments. Auditory processing evaluations assess specific auditory skills necessary to hear and understand complex auditory signals, but many of these tests rely heavily on language. This poses an issue for individuals with native languages other than English because the test results may not clearly identify whether performance is due to an auditory processing problem or to the language used in the test materials. This study aims to identify whether auditory processing performance differs in Spanish-English bilinguals based on the language of the test materials used (English vs. Spanish). Ultimately, the results of this study may aid in more accurate diagnoses and treatment of auditory processing disorders in bilingual individuals.

Hearing loss is a critical health concern in the rapidly aging population, affecting approximately 22 million older individuals in the United States. Yet, only 30% of individuals who would benefit from the use of hearing aids regularly use them. This project aims to improve the benefit of hearing aids for older adults through incorporation of objective neural measures to assess effects of hearing aid algorithms.