Father Flanagan's Boys' Home
The goal of this study is to examine the effects of hearing aids and early intervention on hearing, language, and neural development in children with hearing loss in one ear, known as unilateral hearing loss. Our main research questions are: 1. Do children with unilateral hearing loss with earlier access to hearing aids and early intervention have better speech understanding in noise than children with unilateral hearing loss with later or no access to intervention? 2. Do children with unilateral hearing loss with earlier access to intervention have more typical responses in the brain than children with late or no access to intervention? 3. Do children with unilateral hearing loss with earlier access to intervention have better speech and language skills than children with late or no access to intervention? Researchers will collect hearing, language, and neural data and information about each child's access to intervention to examine the longitudinal impact of auditory experience on these outcomes. Participants and their caregivers will: * Answer questions about the child's health, developmental, and hearing histories. * Receive hearing tests and speech recognition tests. * Complete tests of speech and language abilities. * A subset of eligible participants will undergo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and magneotencephalography (MEG).
More than 5 million children in the United States have hearing loss in one ear, known as unilateral hearing loss (UHL). The primary consequence of UHL is reduced spatial hearing, which is crucial for communication and functioning in everyday listening conditions. Children with UHL (CUHL) are at risk for delays in language and academic outcomes compared to peers with normal hearing in both ears. However, there are large individual differences in developmental outcomes that cannot be explained by the degree of hearing loss in the affected ear. CUHL also have a wide range of spatial hearing abili…
Inclusion Criteria: * Children with normal hearing will have hearing thresholds from 0.25 - 8 kHz ≤15 dB HL in both ears with no history of neurodevelopmental, communication, or sensory disorders. * Children with unilateral hearing loss will have hearing thresholds that meet the criterion for CNH in the better ear and three-frequency (.5, 1, \& 2 kHz) pure-tone average ≥ 20 - \<70 dB HL or two or more hearing thresholds ≥ 20 - \< 70 dB HL from 2-8 kHz in the poorer ear. Hearing loss can be conductive, mixed, or sensorineural. Exclusion Criteria: * Children with unilateral hearing loss who h…
Hearing aids amplify acoustic sound to provide access to acoustic cues for communication and spatial hearing.