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Alterations of Oscillatory Activity Underlying Visual Attention in Children and Adolescents with Mild-to-Severe Hearing Loss

Poster Session B - Sunday, March 8, 2026, 8:00 – 10:00 am PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom

Clare Reinhart^1,2 (), Zhiying Shen^1,2,3, Jack Carroll^1,2, Grace Salloum^1,2, Maggie Rempe^1,4, Elizabeth Walker⁵, Ryan W. McCreery^2,6, Elizabeth Heinrichs-Graham^1,2,3,4; ¹Cognitive and Sensory Imaging Laboratory, Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, NE, ²Center for Pediatric Brain Health, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, NE, ³Creighton University School of Medicine, Omaha, NE, ⁴College of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, ⁵Pediatric Audiology Lab, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, ⁶Audibility, Perception, and Cognition Laboratory, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, NE

Recent work in individuals with severe-to-profound hearing loss suggests that hearing loss results in changes to visual processing and attention. Whether this extends to children with mild-to-severe hearing loss (CHL) is unclear, and studies of the underlying neural dynamics are lacking. This study sought to examine whether the neural dynamics serving visual attention are altered in CHL relative to children with normal hearing (CNH). A total of 41 CHL, and 59 CNH aged 7-14 years completed a visual search task during magnetoencephalography (MEG). Participants were instructed to indicate the location of the gray circle (i.e., target) in relation to the fixation cross in the presence of nine visual distractors. In the feature condition, participants identified the target using only one distinguishing attribute, while in the conjunctive condition, participants identified the target using a combination of features. Neural data were preprocessed and transformed into the time-frequency domain. Significant responses were identified and imaged using beamforming. Condition-by-age-by-group interactions and corresponding brain-behavior relationships were then probed. We found age-related improvements in performance across groups, as well as a significant age-by-condition effect such that performance improved more steeply in the conjunctive than the feature condition. CHL were significantly less accurate and responded slower than CNH. Significant task-related neural responses were found in theta, alpha, and beta frequencies. Source-level linear-mixed effect analyses revealed frequency-specific condition-by-age-by-group interactions throughout frontoparietal and occipital regions, which were uniquely related to behavior. Taken together, these data suggest that variability in auditory experience may result in differences in high-order attention processing.

Topic Area: ATTENTION: Spatial