Clinical Research Directory

Retro Walking With and Without Bosu Ball for Balance and Mobility in Hearing Impaired Children

his randomized controlled trial aims to evaluate the effects of retro walking with and without BOSU ball training on balance and mobility in hearing-impaired children aged 8-12 years. A total of 24 participants will be divided into experimental and control groups. The experimental group will receive retro walking along with BOSU ball training, while the control group will perform retro walking only for 8 weeks. Balance and mobility will be assessed using the Pediatric Balance Scale, Timed Up and Go Test, and One-Leg Stance Test. Data will be collected from specialized schools in Lahore and analyzed using SPSS 27. Ethical approval will be obtained prior to study commencement.

Artificial Grammar Learning in Children Who Are Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing: Stimulus Length Effect

The goal of this basic experimental study involving humans (BESH) clinical trial is to examine how stimulus length affects grammar learning in children who are deaf or hard-of-hearing and who primarily use spoken language. The main question it aims to answer is: do short or long stimuli better support grammar learning in this population? Participants will complete an artificial grammar learning task to see which condition (short vs. long stimuli) results in better grammar learning.

Pilot Evaluation of the Developed Syntactic-Semantic Visual Configuration Intervention for Children With Language Impairment

This study will pilot a newly developed Syntactic-Semantic Visual Configuration Intervention (SSVCI) designed to help Urdu-speaking children with language impairment improve their ability to understand and produce phrases and sentences. The intervention was developed through extensive literature review, expert recommendations, and the structure of the Urdu language to ensure that it is appropriate for children in Pakistan. Before pilot testing, experts in speech-language pathology and Urdu linguist according to the inclusion criteria reviewed the intervention material to evaluate whether the activities are relevant, culturally appropriate, and representative of the language skills being taught. Feedback from children and caregivers was also be used to in the first phase of need assessment, before the intervention material was finalized. The pilot study will include 20 children aged 6 to 12 years, including 10 children with language impairment and 10 children with typical language development. Participants will be recruited from selected schools, hospitals, and special education centers in Islamabad. Children with language impairment conditions , with primary diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, hearing impairment, cerebral palsy, or Down syndrome, provided they meet the study eligibility criteria will be included. Participants will complete language assessments before taking part in the intervention activities. These assessments will measure language skills such as sentence formation, understanding of spoken language, and narrative abilities. Information collected during the pilot study will help researchers determine whether the intervention materials are clear, practical, culturally appropriate, and suitable for use in a larger clinical trial. Findings from this study will also be used to refine the intervention by identifying activities or items that require modification or removal before final implementation.

Project PAIR: Parent-implemented Articulation Intervention With Recast

Using a single-case multiple baseline across participants design, this study aims to explore the effectiveness of parent-implemented Broad Treatment Speech Recast supplemented with traditional clinician-led articulation therapy on speech production in elementary-aged deaf and hard of hearing children. To address these objectives, the following research questions will be investigated: 1. Does drill-based articulation therapy, administered by a speech-language pathologist, improve speech sound production in DHH children when parent-implemented BTSR is concurrently utilized at home? 2. Does the combination of parent-implemented BTSR and clinician-led traditional articulation therapy result in generalization of speech sound accuracy at the conversation level?

EarGenie MVP Performance Evaluation

This is a single-group clinical trial to evaluate the performance of the EarGenie minimum viable product (MVP) in normal hearing infants. The EarGenie MVP tests for detection and discrimination of sounds will be administered, and the sensitivity and specificity of the tests will be estimated for a range of sound levels (detection) and speech sound contrasts (discrimination).

Hearing Impairment in Children: Pupillometry and Hearing Thresholds Assessment

The results of the previous study on auditory effort in young children with cochlear implants show that pupils respond to the presence or the absence of the perceived stimuli. The investigators hypothesize that the perceived sounds will elicit increased pupil dilation compared to the non-perceived sounds and that the hearing threshold as measured with pure tone audiometry will correlate to the results in pupillometry test. The investigators hypothesize that the effect will be visible in all testing groups albeit the relative increase of pupil size with age. Hypothesis confirmed, the investigators will develop a standardised procedure for the auditory signal detection using pupillometry. Such a procedure could represent an important bridge between automatic and behavioral hearing tests. With a more precise test of auditory threshold of young children, post-operative monitoring and fitting of cochlear implants or hearing aids, and rehabilitation procedures, could be considerably more targeted and consequentially more efficient.