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Causes of Listening Difficulties in Children
Sponsor: Universitaire Ziekenhuizen KU Leuven
Summary
Many children experience listening and processing difficulties (LiD), especially in background noise, despite normal hearing sensitivity. The prevalence of these problems is estimated at 0.5-1% in the general population. Listening difficulties are associated with developmental disorders (DD) such as specific language disorders, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), ADHD and learning disabilities. Many children with developmental problems are easily distracted by sounds, have difficulty concentrating for long periods, processing language, remembering and summarizing oral information, and can experience academic difficulties (reading, writing). Early identification, differential diagnosis and intervention are important to help children overcome these difficulties and reach their full potential. Some concerns about these listening and processing problems, such as the lack of a gold standard to diagnose LiD and age-appropriate reference data, led to the initiation of this study. CLINIC aims to develop a new approach to diagnose the causes of listening difficulties in children. This is accomplished through (1) a validated parent questionnaire and (2) a multidisciplinary behavioral assessment tool. Data from these combined measures will lead to evidence-based profiles of children with LiD, which in turn will help streamline their referral pathways and care pathways.
Key Details
Gender
All
Age Range
6 Years - 14 Years
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Enrollment
280
Start Date
2025-01
Completion Date
2027-12
Last Updated
2024-04-29
Healthy Volunteers
Yes
Conditions
Interventions
Evaluation of Children's Listening and Processing Skills
The Evaluation of Children's Listening \& Processing Skills (ECLiPS; (Barry \& Moore, 2021; Barry et al., 2015; Petley et al., 2021) is a caregiver-report outcome measure to profile auditory and cognitive real-world abilities important for successful listening and (auditory) processing.
Multidisciplinary behavioral assessment
By collecting behavioral measures, the investigators wish to understand the functional implications of the presented problems. Children will complete various well-chosen tasks using a tablet, in the presence of a trained clinician. Tablets are used as they are ubiquitous, cost-effective, and have excellent quality audio output. The investigators will apply the concept of differential testing (Dillon \& Cameron, 2021; Lagacé et al., 2010) to narrow down the range of deficits that lead to deficient scores. The investigators distinguish four (partly overlapping) categories of behavioral measures: 1) auditory processing, 2) (nonsense) speech sound processing in quiet and in noise, excluding semantics, 3) meaningful speech in quiet and in noise, language processing, and 4) neurocognitive (including attention, memory, processing speed) processing.