Spatial Hearing Rehabilitation in Noise for Bilateral Cochlear Implant Children (KidTrain)

February 6, 2026 updated by: Hospices Civils de Lyon

In recent decades, there was a great expansion for bilateral cochlear implantation (bCI) in children, leading to an improvement of their quality of life. However, spatial hearing skills of bCI children remain limited, even for children with the best speech understanding outcomes. Recent studies have brought new insights in spatial hearing by using virtual reality to record spatial hearing performance in 3D and the impact of active listening (i.e. free head exploration during sound emission): all bCI children showed spatial hearing difficulties related to front-back confusions and distance perception, which partly resulted from the reduction in auditory cues by the CI settings. However, bCI children notably improved under conditions of active listening, suggesting that interaction with environment could represent a rehabilitation entry strategy to help bCI users when faced with complex auditory scenes in daily life.

The ability to localize sounds in space (spatial hearing) and the ability to understand speech in noise are both auditory skills essential in daily interactions with our physical and social environment and, when deficient, limit the quality of life. However, there is no specific rehabilitation program devoted to spatial hearing which could help children face their daily difficulties in noisy environments. Even though technological advances are crucial to improve the restoration of hearing functions, these improvements are also highly dependent on rehabilitation strategies to train our auditory brain to face the restoration of binaural processing or to decode the impoverished spectral information delivered by the CI.

The investigators recently performed a pilot study in bCI adults who attended 8 training sessions of spatial hearing, involving a sensorial and interactive immersive environment (i.e. virtual reality with auditory and visual environment during an active listening task). All participants benefitted of the training, in terms of spatial hearing performance, speech understanding in noise, and quality of life. All early benefits were maintained 1 month after the end of training.

The investigators aim to propose a spatial hearing rehabilitation program (KidTrain) adapted to bCI children from 8 to 17 years old, based on their previous pilot study on bCI adults. Their tool makes it possible to propose rehabilitation programs adapted to the performance and expectations of each child. This program will manipulate both the ambient sound with varying background noise to simulate daily life environments (i.e. making auditory detection more or less complex), and also manipulate virtual immersive environment (i.e. giving more or less relevant visual cues related to real sound location). The KidTrain's effects will be measured with different auditory tests performed in noisy environments. The investigators will also include Normal Hearing (NH) children as age-matched control groups to perform the auditory tests in noise. These NH groups will also bring new insights of spatial hearing maturation in complex auditory environments. Based on our preliminary data in bCI adults, this 'KidTrain program' should improve spatial hearing skills of bCI children, speech comprehension in noise and quality of life in many daily situations.

Virtual reality (VR) has recently proven its effectiveness in rehabilitation in many domains and recent studies have shown that this technology has its place in the auditory evaluation and adaptation of spatial hearing. This VR approach takes advantage of the control of multisensory cues of our environment (audio and visual) during a spatial hearing task, and allows the subject to interact with his environment according to his hearing abilities and needs (i.e. active listening).

Based on their previous study conducted in bCI and NH children and on their spatial training study conducted with bCI adults, the investigators wish to respond to the growing need of spatial hearing rehabilitation for bCI children. To achieve this goal, the investigators will improve the spatial training program by adding different immersive environment in VR with various background noise to simulate daily life environments. This approach will also be a great opportunity to characterize the developmental stages of spatial hearing maturation in NH children. Thus, this project will propose new axes of speech therapy on the Orthophonie & Surdité platform, combining spatial hearing and speech understanding in noise. This innovative and adapted rehabilitation program will lead the speech therapist to propose more adapted and effective rehabilitations for the daily life of deaf children.

Study Overview

Status

Recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

56

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Contact

Study Contact Backup

Study Locations

  • France
      • Lyon, France, 69437
        • Recruiting
        • Service d'Oto-Rhino-Laryngologie et Chirurgie cervico-faciale Hôpital Edouard Herriot, Groupement Hospitalier Centre
        • Contact:
        • Contact:

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Child

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Child aged between 7 and 17 years
  • Normal vision (including correction),
  • Able to understand the experimental instructions,
  • Parents or guardians informed of the study and having signed the consent form,

Specific for NH:

  • Normal tone audiometry (mean threshold ≤ 30 dB). Specific for bIC
  • Minimum 2 years of binaural experience,
  • Average speech recognition ≥ 80% with both cochlear implants

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Bilateral vestibular areflexia,
  • Attention deficit disorder,
  • Known neurological or psychiatric disorders,
  • Oculomotor disorders,
  • Parents not affiliated to a social security scheme or beneficiaries of a similar scheme who sign the consent for the child's participation,
  • Subject participating in other interventional research with an exclusion period still ongoing at inclusion.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Diagnostic
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Group A
bilateral cochlear implant children with rehabilitation including 8 sessions with a spatialized sensory index
Diagnostic test: SPHERE protocol : Spatial hearing performances test
Participants will be instructed to localize a sound emitted in their environment using a virtual reality setup (SPHERE protocol).
Diagnostic test: FRASIMAT Test : audiology test of speech in noise perception
Intelligibility threshold is the signal-to-noise ratio (in decibels) for which the subject can repeat 50% of the words heard in a dichotic listening.
Diagnostic test: Kid SSQ questionnaire of life : The Speech, Spatial and Other Qualities of Hearing Scale
The SSQ questionnaire is a clinical subjective scale that allows evaluating of hearing performances in daily life. The questionnaire is divided into 3 main items (A: speech; B: spatial hearing; C: other qualities of hearing) comprising questions with rating scores out of ten.
Other: spatial hearing rehabilitation program
The tool makes it possible to propose rehabilitation programs adapted to the performance and expectations of each child. This program will manipulate both the ambient sound with varying background noise to simulate daily life environments (i.e. making auditory detection more or less complex), and also manipulate virtual immersive environment (i.e. giving more or less relevant visual cues related to real sound location).
Experimental: Group B
bilateral cochlear implant children with rehabilitation including initially 4 sessions without spatialized sensory cue followed by 4 sessions with spatialized sensory cue
Diagnostic test: SPHERE protocol : Spatial hearing performances test
Participants will be instructed to localize a sound emitted in their environment using a virtual reality setup (SPHERE protocol).
Diagnostic test: FRASIMAT Test : audiology test of speech in noise perception
Intelligibility threshold is the signal-to-noise ratio (in decibels) for which the subject can repeat 50% of the words heard in a dichotic listening.
Diagnostic test: Kid SSQ questionnaire of life : The Speech, Spatial and Other Qualities of Hearing Scale
The SSQ questionnaire is a clinical subjective scale that allows evaluating of hearing performances in daily life. The questionnaire is divided into 3 main items (A: speech; B: spatial hearing; C: other qualities of hearing) comprising questions with rating scores out of ten.
Other: spatial hearing rehabilitation program
The tool makes it possible to propose rehabilitation programs adapted to the performance and expectations of each child. This program will manipulate both the ambient sound with varying background noise to simulate daily life environments (i.e. making auditory detection more or less complex), and also manipulate virtual immersive environment (i.e. giving more or less relevant visual cues related to real sound location).
Active Comparator: Normal hearing volunteers
Children without known hearing loss
Diagnostic test: SPHERE protocol : Spatial hearing performances test
Participants will be instructed to localize a sound emitted in their environment using a virtual reality setup (SPHERE protocol).
Diagnostic test: FRASIMAT Test : audiology test of speech in noise perception
Intelligibility threshold is the signal-to-noise ratio (in decibels) for which the subject can repeat 50% of the words heard in a dichotic listening.
Diagnostic test: Kid SSQ questionnaire of life : The Speech, Spatial and Other Qualities of Hearing Scale
The SSQ questionnaire is a clinical subjective scale that allows evaluating of hearing performances in daily life. The questionnaire is divided into 3 main items (A: speech; B: spatial hearing; C: other qualities of hearing) comprising questions with rating scores out of ten.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
To evaluate the very short-term effects of spatial rehabilitation on the auditory performance of bCI children.
Time Frame: Immediately after 4 training sessions - day 42
The effect of spatial rehabilitation will be defined as any change in auditory performance (SPHERE value), between the initial assessment and after 4 training sessions.
Immediately after 4 training sessions - day 42
To evaluate the very short-term effects of spatial rehabilitation on the auditory performance of bCI children.
Time Frame: Immediately after 4 training sessions - day 42
The effect of spatial rehabilitation will be defined as any change in auditory performance (FRASIMAT value), between the initial assessment and after 4 training sessions.
Immediately after 4 training sessions - day 42
To evaluate the very short-term effects of spatial rehabilitation on the auditory performance of bCI children.
Time Frame: Immediately after 4 training sessions - day 42
The effect of spatial rehabilitation will be defined as any change in auditory performance (KID-SSQ score), between the initial assessment and after 4 training sessions.
Immediately after 4 training sessions - day 42

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
To evaluate the compliance of bCI children with the rehabilitation protocol
Time Frame: At the end of the study ( Visit 13 - day 98)
Number of training sessions attended by bCI patients
At the end of the study ( Visit 13 - day 98)
To evaluate the impact of a spatialized sensory index in rehabilitation.
Time Frame: At the end of the study ( Visit 13 - day 98)
Measures obtained at the E2 assessment (SPHERE value) between the group of bCI children in group A and those in group B.
At the end of the study ( Visit 13 - day 98)
To evaluate the impact of a spatialized sensory index in rehabilitation.
Time Frame: At the end of the study ( Visit 13 - day 98)
Measures obtained at the E2 assessment (FRASIMAT value) between the group of bCI children in group A and those in group B.
At the end of the study ( Visit 13 - day 98)
To evaluate the impact of a spatialized sensory index in rehabilitation.
Time Frame: At the end of the study ( Visit 13 - day 98)
Measures obtained at the E2 assessment (KID-SSQ score) between the group of bCI children in group A and those in group B.
At the end of the study ( Visit 13 - day 98)
To evaluate the effect in the very short/short and medium term of spatial hearing rehabilitation on the spatial sound localization performance of bIC children compared to NH children
Time Frame: At evaluation visits Day 0, 42, 77 and 98
SPHERE confusion rates (front-back, up-down, near-far) for bCI children at E2, E3 and E4 and NH children at E0.
At evaluation visits Day 0, 42, 77 and 98
To evaluate the effect of very short-term, short-term and medium-term spatial hearing rehabilitation on the speech comprehension performance of bIC children compared to NH children.
Time Frame: At evaluation visits Day 0, 42, 77 and 98
FRASIMAT noise intelligibility scores for bCI children in E2, E3 and E4 and those for NH children in E0.
At evaluation visits Day 0, 42, 77 and 98
To evaluate the effect of very short-term and short-term and medium-term spatial hearing rehabilitation on the quality of life performance of bIC children compared to NH children.
Time Frame: At evaluation visits Day 0, 42, 77 and 98
KID-SSQ spatial hearing scores obtained by bCI children in E2, E3 and E4 and those obtained by NH children in E0.
At evaluation visits Day 0, 42, 77 and 98
To assess the absence of spontaneous changes in auditory performance.
Time Frame: At day 0 and 7
SPHERE measure for the bCI and NH groups between the E0 and E1 assessments.
At day 0 and 7
To assess the absence of spontaneous changes in auditory performance.
Time Frame: At day 0 and 7
FRASIMAT measure for the bCI and NH groups between the E0 and E1 assessments.
At day 0 and 7
To assess the absence of spontaneous changes in auditory performance.
Time Frame: At day 0 and 7
KID SSQ measure for the bCI and NH groups between the E0 and E1 assessments.
At day 0 and 7

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Hospices Civils de Lyon

Investigators

  • Study Chair: Aurélie Coudert, MD, Hospices Civils de Lyon

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

March 27, 2024

Primary Completion (Estimated)

July 27, 2027

Study Completion (Estimated)

November 1, 2027

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

August 30, 2023

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

September 14, 2023

First Posted (Actual)

September 18, 2023

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

February 10, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

February 6, 2026

Last Verified

February 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 69HCL22_0893

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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