An observational study in Hearing Disorders and Deafness, sponsored by Heikki Löppönen. Recruiting at 7 sites in Finland. Open to participants aged 11 Years to 16 Years, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-02-25.
Sponsored by Heikki Löppönen · Observational
ListenFuture, a nation-wide multidisciplinary project, brings new knowledge on complex associations between listening, cognition, language, literacy, and psychosocial wellbeing in deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) adolescents. Earlier findings indicate that DHH adolescents remain at a risk to achieving age-appropriate skills. The associations among these skills can also be language-dependent. The investigators use behavioral methods and questionnaires. The investigators study speech perception in noise, listening, and listening-related fatigue to reveal how DHH adolescents cope in today's noisy environment. The investigators study cognitive skills and executive functions, spoken language and literacy skills to find out the current state-of-knowledge. The investigators study psychosocial wellbeing, school burnout and factors associated with them. The investigators will utilize supervised and interpretable machine learning to analyse the performance domains that could best predict the outcomes of DHH adolescents. The investigators expect our project to have broad societal impact for DHH adolescents, healthcare, school, and other stakeholders.
ListenFuture provides comprehensive insights into challenges deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) adolescents face in speech perception, language, and literacy, skills essential for use, creation, and integration of information. The investigators will explore the following skills and their complex associations: 1) auditory speech perception, 2) cognitive skills and executive functions, 3) spoken language, 4) literacy, and 5) psychosocial wellbeing and school burnout. The investigators will analyse the demographic, cognitive, speech perception and language processing domains that best predict the outcomes. ListenFuture has the potential to enhance the wellbeing and participation of DHH adolescents and provide valuable information for intervention services and policy making.
160 studies on the registry are indexed under Deafness; 46 are open to participants now.
This study's planned enrollment of 256 is above the median of 101 across 47 observational studies indexed under Deafness.
Browse Deafness studies →This is the only study on the registry with Heikki Löppönen as lead sponsor.
Compared within Deafness, this study's primary condition as ClinicalTrials.gg classifies it; the registry's first condition term is Hearing Disorders. The counts are of registry records indexed under each term, refreshed daily. How we classify →
Children with hearing loss are voluntary participants who are in care at the university hospitals in Finland.
Children with typical hearing are voluntary participants from the cities of Finland.
Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.
Group 1
- Bilateral mild to complete hearing loss
Group 2:
Exclusion Criteria:
Group 1 and Group 2:
Group 2:
- concerns regarding attention and psychosocial wellbeing
children with mild-complete hearing loss
normal hearing
Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (CELF5)
General language skills. Measurement of language performance against age-matched peers
Time frame: Day 1
Assessment of reading, writing and arithmetic skills (LUKILASSE)
Assessment of school skills in relation to the goals required by the grade level (in Finnish language)
Time frame: Day 1
Plan to share: Yes — anonymized and published outcome data can be shared with other researchers when the research completed
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