Combined Electric and Acoustic Hearing (EAS) in Children and Adults

Recruiting now · Not applicable

Conditions studied: Cochlear Implant, Hearing Loss

In brief

Cochlear implants are surgically implanted devices which restore the ability to hear to the hearing impaired. Improvements in surgery and electrodes have results in an increased number of adults and children who have residual hearing and can benefit from electric and acoustic hearing in the same ear. This is called Electric Acoustic Stimulation (EAS). Many studies have shown that adult EAS users show significant benefits for speech understanding in noise and spatial hearing tasks as compared to a CI paired only with a contralateral HA. Even though this type of hearing is becoming more common, there is limited research on how it can be beneficial to children with CIs. The benefits of this study are a greater understanding of the participant's speech understanding, binaural processing, and spatial hearing. The results will help audiologists and researcher better understand how cochlear implants work, specifically when using electric and acoustic hearing in the same ear.

Key facts

Study ID

NCT05923203

Run by

Hearts for Hearing

People needed

160

Starts

2022-12-05

Expected to finish

2028-08-31

Last updated by the study team

2025-10-20

Who can join

Age: 5 and older. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: accepted.

You may qualify if…

• Children aged 5 to 17 years of age with either normal hearing (n=40) or at least 1 cochlear implant (CI) and binaural low-frequency acoustic hearing (n=40); adults aged 18+ years with either normal hearing (n=40) or at least 1 CI and binaural low-frequency acoustic hearing (n=40).
• Experimental participants must have at least one CI and bilateral mild to severe sensorineural hearing loss For CI participants, audiometric thresholds in the non-CI ear must be consistent with at least a mild sensorineural hearing loss; that is, the investigators will not be enrolling participants with single-sided deafness (SSD) For CI participants, unaided audiometric thresholds must be less than or equal to 80 dB HL for 125 and 250 Hz, in both ears.
• Nonverbal cognitive abilities within the typical range for all participants; adult participants must also pass cognitive screening via Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA or HI-MoCA).
• No confounding diagnosis such as autism, auditory neuropathy, neurological disorder, or general cognitive impairment.
• Willingness to use EAS technology in the implanted ear(s) to be verified via data logging from cochlear implant and hearing aid software.

You may not qualify if…

• Nonverbal intelligence standard score < 85 (for any participant).
• MoCA or HI-MoCA score < 26 for adult participants.

Where it is running

• Hearts for Hearing — Edmond, Oklahoma, United States (enrolling)
• University Of Texas at Austin — Austin, Texas, United States (enrolling)
• University Of Wisconsin Madison — Madison, Wisconsin, United States (enrolling)
• Vanderbilt University Medical Center — Nashville, Tennessee, United States

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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