Eyes On Lips? Speechreading Skills and Facial Expression Discrimination in Children With and Without Impaired Hearing

NCT05854719 | Completed

• 1 other identifier: 47/2022
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 140
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

The goal of this clinical trial is to find out the role of background factors and gaze use in children's speechreading performance. The main questions it aims to answer are:

• Which background factors and eye gaze patterns are associated with the best speechreading results in hearing children and those with hearing impairment/loss?
• Are children's gaze patterns and facial expression discrimination associated with interpretation of emotional contents of verbal messages in speechreading?
• What is the efficacy of intervention that is based on the use of a speechreading application to be developed? Participants will be
• tested with linguistic and cognitive tests and tasks
• tested with a speechreading test and tasks with or without simultaneous eye-tracking
• about half of the participants with hearing impairment/loss will train speechreading with an application Researchers will compare the different age groups and the results of hearing children to those of children with impaired hearing to see if there are differences.

Conditions

Hearing Impairment; Hearing Impaired Children

Keywords

hearing impairment; child; speechreading; lipreading; development; eye-tracking; hearing loss

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (2)

• Level of speechreading skill

  Score obtained in Children's speechreading test (percent correct, min 0, max 100, higher score indicates better result)

  Two months

• Level of performance in emotions (facial expressions) + sentence-level speeachreading task

  Score obtained (percent correct, min 0, max 100, higher score indicates better result)

  Two months

Secondary Outcomes (1)

• Eye gaze use

  Two months

Other Outcomes (1)

• Level of facial expression discrimination skills

  Two months

Study Arms (3)

Normally hearing children

NO INTERVENTION

No intervention, only initial testing (normal-hearing controls).

Children with hearing impairment/loss with intervention

EXPERIMENTAL

These children participate in speechreading training for two months at home.

Behavioral: Speechreading training with an application

Children with hearing impairment/loss with no intervention

NO INTERVENTION

These children will serve as controls for two months with no speechreading training.

Interventions

Speechreading training with an application BEHAVIORAL

The Optic Track application developed for this intervention will be used in speechreading training. The target is that, during the eight intervention weeks, it would be used for 15 minutes at least three times a week.

Children with hearing impairment/loss with intervention

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 8 Years - 11 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Child (0-17)

You may qualify if:

• Normally hearing children:
• age 8-11 years
• being born full-term (on 37. gestational week or later)
• Finnish speaking (Finnish is the language the child's family uses at home, the child goes to a school where Finnish is used as the language of instruction)
• normal hearing and vision
• typically developing, mainstream education curriculum at school
• for those tested remotely: computer available at home for remote testing
• Children with hearing impairment/loss:
• age 8-11 years
• diagnosed bilateral hearing impairment
• being born full-term (on 37. gestational week or later)
• Finnish speaking (Finnish is the language the child's family uses at home, the child goes to a school where Finnish is used as the language of instruction)
• normal vision
• (mainly) typically developing
• for those tested remotely: computer available at home for remote testing

You may not qualify if:

• Normally hearing children: psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders, including ADHD (Attention Deficit and Hyperacitivity Disorder)
• Children with hearing impairment/loss: psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders (excluding ADHD if medication helps the child to concentrate well during testing)

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Tampere University: collaborator
• University of Oulu: lead
• University of Helsinki: collaborator

Study Sites (1)

University of Oulu

Oulu, Finland

Location

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Hearing Loss

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Hearing Disorders; Ear Diseases; Otorhinolaryngologic Diseases; Sensation Disorders; Neurologic Manifestations; Nervous System Diseases; Signs and Symptoms; Pathological Conditions, Signs and Symptoms

Study Officials

• Kerttu Huttunen, PhD

  University of Oulu, Finland

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: NON RANDOMIZED
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: TREATMENT
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Model Details: Children with hearing impairment/loss are offered with the possibility for a two-month speechreading training at home. Altogether 30 children willing to participate in speechreading training will be recruited into the intervention group. Those not willing to participate in intervention will serve as controls (with no intervention). Normally hearing children will not take part in intervention, they only serve as controls.

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: April 11, 2023
• First Posted: May 11, 2023
• Study Start: May 12, 2023
• Primary Completion: December 12, 2025
• Study Completion: December 12, 2025
• Last Updated: January 8, 2026

Record last verified: 2025-12

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will not share

Locations

FI (1)