Overview
- clEAR provides affordable auditory brain training to those with hearing loss in order to enhance speech recognition of both their Frequent Communication Partners (FCPs) and everyday talkers. Unlike other programs featuring the pre-recorded speech of professional actors, our software allows your FCP (e.g., a spouse, grandchild, or colleague) to seamlessly record their own voice directly into our fun, game-like training. That way, users can learn to better discriminate the speech of those they most care about.
- clEAR was developed by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM) in St. Louis and has been supported by over $4 million in research funding to-date from the National Institutes of Health. An additional $2 million in funding was recently awarded.
- In a group of 93 adults with hearing loss, compliance rates (i.e., willingness to complete the recommended training exercises) with clEAR exceeded 95% (Tye-Murray et al., 2012), as compared to less than 30% for another popular auditory brain training program (Sweetow & Sabes, 2008).
- When asked whether they would engage in clEAR training again, 81% of our participants responded yes (Tye-Murray, et al., 2012).
- When asked whether they would recommend clEAR training to a friend, 85% responded yes (Tye-Murray et al., 2012).
- After completing 16 hours of auditory brain training in a clinic-like setting, 44 patients were offered a training tablet to take home so to receive additional training; 40 accepted the offer (Unpublished data).
- In a study of 47 adults with hearing loss, participants improved significantly in their abilities to discriminate words and recognize words in noise as a result of clEAR training. Improvements occurred whether training sessions occurred daily or were spaced over time. Improvements were maintained 3 months after training ended (Tye-Murray et al., Submitted).
- Eighty-three adults with hearing loss significantly improved their speech discrimination after receiving clEAR training whereas a control group of 24 adults who received placebo computerized training showed no improvement (Barcroft et al., 2011; Barcroft et al., 2016).
- In a group of ten couples who had been married an average of 14 years, clEAR improved the ability of adults who have hearing loss to discriminate the speech of their spouse and led to improved communication interactions between the couples (Tye-Murray et al., 2016).
- In a group of 93 adults with hearing loss, clEAR led to subjective improvements in everyday listening challenges (Tye-Murray et al., 2012).
- In a group of 82 adults with hearing loss, clEAR auditory brain training was shown to significantly reduce “perceptual effort”, which as the name implies, is the effort expended to recognize speech; the greater the perceptual effort, the fewer cognitive resources are available for processing and comprehending spoken messages (Sommers et al., 2015).
Customized auditory brain training works.
Transfer-appropriate gains occurred following auditory brain training; patients who received auditory brain training with six talkers improved most on a word discrimination test that presented the speech of multiple talkers whereas patients who received auditory brain training with the voice of only one talker improved most on a test that presented the speech of a single talker. These results suggest that auditory brain training can be designed to target specific patient needs.
Barcroft, J., Sommers, M. S., Tye-Murray, N., Mauzé, E., Schroy, C., & Spehar, B. (2011). Tailoring auditory brain training to patient needs with single and multiple talkers: Transfer-appropriate gains on a four-choice discrimination test. International Journal of Audiology, 50(11), 802-808.
Barcroft, J., Spehar, B., Tye-Murray, N., & Sommers, M. (2016). Task-and talker-specific gains in auditory brain training. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 59(4), 862-870.
clEAR auditory brain training reduces perceptual effort.
When someone has a hearing loss, listening in noise requires a great deal of perceptual effort, meaning that the person has to use more cognitive resources to recognize spoken words. As a result, that person has fewer cogitive resources available to process the content of the spoken message. This investigation showed that clEAR auditory brain training leads to reduced perceptual effort during listening.
Sommers, M. S., Tye-Murray, N., Barcroft, J., & Spehar, B. P. (2015, November). The Effects of Meaning-Based Auditory Brain Training on Behavioral Measures of Perceptual Effort in Individuals with Impaired Hearing. In Seminars in Hearing (Vol. 36, No. 04, pp. 263-272). Thieme Medical Publishers.
Coaching from a hearing healthcare professional enhances auditory brain training.
Participants in auditory brain training perceived coaching to be beneficial. When asked what they liked best about participating in the auditory brain training program, they responded that they liked the regular contact with a hearing healthcare professional and that auditory brain training gave them an increased sense of control over their hearing loss.
Tye-Murray, N., Sommers, M. S., Mauzé, E., Schroy, C., Barcroft, J., & Spehar, B. (2012). Using patient perceptions of relative benefit and enjoyment to assess auditory brain training. J Am Acad Audiol, 23, 1-12.
clEAR auditory brain training with a familiar frequent communication partner (FCP) is beneficial.
Auditory Brain Training improved the ability of older adults with hearing loss to recognize the speech of their spouse, despite the fact that couples had been married an average of 14 years. Moreover, the trainees indicated that their listening challenges had lessened as a result. These results support the value of providing auditory brain training using the voice of a patient’s FCP.
Tye-Murray, N., Spehar, B., Sommers, M., & Barcroft, J. (2016). Auditory Brain Training with frequent communication partners. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 59(4), 871-875.
clEAR auditory brain training with an unfamiliar talker (who may become an FCP) is beneficial.
Auditory Brain Training improved the ability of older adults to discriminate the speech of someone who they had never heard before training. These results support the value of receiving training using the voice of someone the patient would most like to hear better, such as a future professor or workmate.
Barcroft, J., Spehar, B., Tye-Murray, N., & Sommers, M. (2016). Task-and talker-specific gains in auditory brain training. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 59(4), 862-870.
Users have flexibility in pursuing a training schedule with clEAR
clEAR auditory brain training improved the speech recognition performance of adults with hearing loss, and benefits were maintained for 3 months. The degree of benefit was the same whether the participants completed training exercises every weekday or whether they completed training exercises twice a week, as long as they had the same amount of training. These findings suggest that patients have latitude in pursuing a training schedule, and should be encouraged to train anywhere from two to five times a week.
Tye-Murray, N., Spehar, B., Barcroft, J., and Sommers, M. (2017). Auditory brain training for adults who have hearing loss: A comparison of spaced versus massed practice schedules. Journal of Speech-Hearing-Language Research, 60, 2337-2345.
clEAR is based on sound theoretical principles of cognitive second-language learning.
Principles of second-language acquisition theory and research on acoustic variability and second-language learning can be beneficially applied to auditory brain training by way of acoustically varied presentation formats.
Barcroft, J., Sommers, M. S., & Tye-Murray, N. (2007). What learning a second language might teach us about auditory brain training. Semin Hear, 28, 150-160.
clEAR is based on sound theoretical principlas of cognitive psychology.
Auditory Brain Training tasks that are purely form-oriented can be modified so that they become meaningful, promoting quality clinical practices and ensuring benefit in the real world.
Barcroft, J., Mauzé, E., Schroy, C., Tye-Murray, N., Sommers, M. S., & Spehar, B. (2011). Improving the quality of auditory brain training by making tasks meaningful. ASHA: Perspectives on Aural Rehabilitation and Its Instrumentation, 7, 115-128.