ListenFuture-Listening for Their Future: Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Adolescents

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.

NCT Number	NCT07416292
Lead Sponsor	Heikki Löppönen Collaborators: Åbo Akademi University, Helsinki University Central Hospital, Kuopio University Hospital, University of Oulu, Oulu University Hospital, Tampere University Hospital, Turku University Hospital, University of Melbourne, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Conditions	Hearing Disorders and Deafness
Enrollment	256 participants
Start Date	2026-03-01
Primary Completion	2029-12-31 (estimated)
Study Completion	2031-12-31 (estimated)
Updated on ClinicalTrials.gov	2026-02-25