Difficulties Understanding Speech in Noise
Conditions
Brief summary
The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if non-invasive brain stimulation (called transcranial stimulation) can enhance the benefits from auditory training in people who struggle to understand one talker when many people are talking at the same time. The main questions it aims to answer are: * Does transcranial stimulation improve speech-on-speech understanding in people who struggle with this task? * Does transcranial stimulation enhance the benefits of a commercially available auditory training program? Researchers will compare transcranial stimulation to sham stimulation (no stimulation is applied during the listening task). Participants will: * Receive login information to an online auditory training program to complete at home over 2 weeks * Visit the laboratory 4 times to receive transcranial stimulation while listening to speech-on-speech: once before at-home training, two times during the at-home training period, and once after at-home training has ended
Interventions
The transcranial alternating current stimulation is delivered during the speech stimulus and the current matches the envelope of the target speech
BEHAVIORALAuditory training
An at-home auditory training program that adaptively and interactively trains the listener in degraded speech, cognitive skills, and communication strategies
Sponsors
Boston University Charles River Campus
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
DOUBLE (Subject, Investigator)
Intervention model description
Participants are randomly assigned to active transcranial stimulation or sham stimulation groups.
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
50 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* 50 years of age or older * Audiometric thresholds that do not exceed 90 dB HL at any frequency from 250-6000 Hz * Able to provide informed consent and understand experimental instructions * Able to read print on a computer screen * Difficulty with speech-on-speech understanding * Access to computer or mobile phone with access to internet that can play sound (for the at-home training)
Exclusion criteria
* Non-native speakers of English * History of skull fracture, scalp tissue damage, metallic implants around the head, seizures, neurological disorders, or traumatic brain injury, current or suspected pregnancy
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Speech-on-speech intelligibility percent correct | From enrollment to the end of participation at 6 weeks | Percent correct score on the speech-on-speech task assessed in the lab |
| Pupillometry measured listening effort | From enrollment to the end of participation at 6 weeks | The peak pupil dilation subtracted from pre-trial baseline pupil dilation, averaged across trials in a block, assessed in the lab |
| QuickSIN SNR Loss | Days 1, 6, and 14 of the two-week auditory training | A speech-in-noise test assessed as part of the at-home auditory training program |
| Hearing Handicap Inventory | Days 1 and 14 of the two-week auditory training program | A listening effort questionnaire given as part of the at-home auditory training program |
Countries
United States
Contacts
CONTACTElin Roverud, AuD, PhD
PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATORElin Roverud, AuD, PhD
Boston University Charles River Campus
Outcome results
None listed