Clinical Research Directory

Effects of Binaural Hearing on Listening Effort and Cognitive Development in Mandarin-speaking Children With Cochlear Implants

This 5-year (2025-2030) prospective observational cohort study aims to recruit 360 participants aged 6-18 years, categorized into three groups: normal-hearing controls, unilateral listeners (unilateral cochlear implantation), and bilateral listeners (bilateral cochlear implantation or bimodal stimulation). At baseline, all participants will undergo comprehensive evaluations, including audiological testing (speech recognition and spectral/temporal resolution), cognitive assessment (WISC and prefrontal resting-state functional connectivity), and social adaptability measurement. Centrally, listening effort will be quantified through an innovative multimodal approach that synchronously records pupil diameter changes and cortical hemodynamic signals via functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) during tasks of varying difficulty, objectively reflecting the cognitive resources exerted for speech processing. Through a 3-year longitudinal follow-up, this study seeks to elucidate how different auditory input modes influence children's listening effort, cognitive development, and social adaptation, ultimately providing a robust scientific foundation for optimizing clinical rehabilitation strategies.

Safety and Performance of Ultra/Ultra 3D Cl With HiFocus SlimJ Electrode in Adults With Severe-to-profound Hearing Loss

This is a prospective study designed to evaluate the safety and performance of the HiResTM Ultra Cl HiFocusTM SlimJ Electrode and HiResTM Ultra 3D Cl HiFocusTM SlimJ Electrode (Ultra X) under normal conditions of use as it is approved for this device. Participants receive interventions as part of routine medical care.

Vocal Emotion Communication With Cochlear Implants

Patients with hearing loss who use cochlear implants (CIs) show significant deficits and strong unexplained intersubject variability in their perception and production of spoken emotions in speech. This project will investigate the hypothesis that "cue-weighting", or how patients utilize the different acoustic cues to emotion, accounts for significant variance in emotional communication with CIs. The results will focus on children with CIs, but parallel measures in postlingually deaf adults with CIs will be made, ensuring that results of these studies benefit social communication by CI patients across the lifespan by informing the development of technological innovations and improved clinical protocols.

Development of Evidence-based Therapeutic Guidelines for Early SLA in Urdu-speaking Children With Cochlear Implants

Firstly global and regional literature on speech therapy after cochlear implantation focusing on Urdu-speaking populations and culturally relevant factors will be systematically reviewed.

Improving Clinical Efficiency by Reducing Scheduled Follow-ups Using Cochlear America's Population Mean Mapping Strategy

The study is about the importance of each follow-up visit after activating a new cochlear implant in addition to evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of a new programming strategy from Cochlear Americas. Investigators are looking for patients who have recently selected Cochlear Americas as their cochlear implant manufacturer of choice for their upcoming surgery. The aim of this study is to determine if 1) patient outcomes remain stable when reducing follow-up appointments and 2) Cochlear's population mean mapping can produce similar outcomes with patients while additionally reducing appointment times. The hypothesis is that using population mean mapping and reducing the number of follow-up visits after activation will yield similar performance outcomes to a standard of care while decreasing the length of appointment times and number of appointments needed for each patient.

Optimizing Bilateral and Single-sided-deafness Cochlear Implants for Functioning in Complex Auditory Environments

Cochlear implants (CIs) are devices that partially restore hearing for people with severe to profound hearing loss. This research focuses on CI users who use bilaterally implanted devices (two CIs, one on each side) and also "single-sided deafness" (SSD) CI users who use one CI together with good acoustic hearing in their opposite ear. The goal is to measure and understand the impact of large input asymmetries across the two ears. These asymmetries are common in BI-CI listeners and always present in SSD-CI users. Although most CI listeners benefit from a second source of auditory input, this project measures how these asymmetries limit speech understanding and spatial hearing. The long-term goal is countering or compensating for input asymmetries. Electrophysiological measures are used to describe the health of the auditory system. Behavioral measures are used to assess if training improves performance. CT imaging is utilized to describe the placement of the CIs.

Evaluation of Remote Programming of Cochlear Implants in Routine Cochlear Implant Follow-up

This is a prospective and monocentric clinical investigation, non-interventional and non-randomized. The overall goal of this clinical study is to generate additional clinical data confirming the safety and efficacy of the remote programming functionality of Target CI version 1.5 and the AB Remote Support app. Hearing outcomes are expected to be similar whether a study subject's sound processor is programmed in the traditional method in the audiologist's office or whether programming is performed via remote fitting. Therefore, the study uses a non-inferiority design to determine whether sentence recognition in noise is no worse with remote fitting than in an in-office setting.

Peripheral and Central Influences on Auditory Temporal Processing & Speech Perception in Older Cochlear Implantees

Older adults who use cochlear implants to address hearing loss show wide variation in benefit. This research investigates the role of normal aging, the health of peripheral and central auditory pathways, and positioning of the cochlear implant electrode array in contributing to this variability. A range of input types from simple auditory signals to spoken sentences is used to examine these questions.

MeasurIng and Restoring Auditory Awareness for Cochlear Implant Listeners in noisE

The goal of this interventional study is to describe how people with cochlear implants perceive the perceive speech in noise and their sound environment on adults who are native French speakers with typical hearing or with cochlear implant(s). The measures and strategies developed in this project could benefit all current and future cochlear implant wearers by improving their perception of the sound environment and their quality of life on a daily basis. Researchers will compare normal hearing participant and participants with cochlear implant to describe the speech in noise and their perception of the sound environment. Participants will perform audiological tests to assess their perception of the sound environment, with and without speech enhancement.

Retrospective Analysis of Long-term Speech Performance in Cochlear Implant Recipients Using Electro-acoustic Stimulation

This is a retrospective study designed to collect long-term speech perception results for cochlear implants recipients using electro-acoustic-stimulation as measured in the clinical routine and to confirm the performance of sound processors associated with acoustic earhooks.