The Center for Pediatric Auditory and Speech Sciences (CPASS) is dedicated to translational research in the audiological and speech sciences with the goal of advancing the practice of pediatric health care in related areas, while simultaneously advancing the underlying science. Participating labs in CPASS include:
- Speech Research Laboratory (SRL)
- Craniofacial Outcomes Research Laboratory (CORL)
- Balance and Vestibular Disorders Laboratory (BVD)
- Auditory Physiology and Psychoacoustics Research Laboratory (APPL)
The Center seeks to tightly integrate research laboratories and clinical health care programs to maximize the potential benefits of data collection for all Nemours professionals and the patients and families we serve. The labs that comprise CPASS frequently collaborate with Nemours pediatric specialists in the Divisions of Otolaryngology (ENT), Neurosurgery, Orthopedics, Ophthalmology and Genetics, among others. Throughout Delaware and in Florida, CPASS also reaches out to local communities providing outreach and educational services such as infant auditory screening, and consultation and support services for local education institutions.
There are a variety of congenital and acquired neurological, neuromuscular and anatomical disorders that can cause a child’s inability to speak, hear or maintain balance such as cerebral palsy, autism, apraxia of speech (motor speech disorder), traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury, to name a few. The CPASS research efforts are aimed toward clinical applications that bear immediate relevance to these patients.
Craniofacial Outcomes Research Laboratory (CORL)
The Craniofacial Outcomes Research Laboratory (CORL) is one of a few labs of its kind in the United States using state-of-the-art equipment to study speech and resonance disorders related to cleft palate and craniofacial anomalies. Work with measures of vocal track pressure and airflow using PERCI-SARS (a software-based instrumentation system), InvTool (a program used to record speech for synthesizing) and Nasometry (a non-invasive technique used to measure the size of the velopharyngeal opening combined with the measurement of nasal emission) continues to prove invaluable in advancing diagnostic abilities to assess resonance and speech disorders and to objectively evaluate the outcomes of the interventions undertaken to improve them. These high-tech instruments are also used by Nemours clinicians to determine treatment planning and monitor progress for patient care.
Auditory Physiology and Psychoacoustics Laboratory (APPL)
Current research projects within the Auditory Physiology and Psychoacoustics Laboratory (APPL) include two Nemours-funded protocols to assess the subjective and objective balance disorders in children with Chiari type I malformation (a structural defect in the part of the brain that controls balance), and the vestibular deficits and related impairments in children with otitis media with effusion (fluid in the middle ear space without symptoms of an acute ear infection) as well as the efficacy of tympanostomy tube placement (ear tubes) in relieving static and dynamic imbalance. Three externally funded studies are also underway. The first study examines auditory, speech and vestibular abilities in patients with Friedreich ataxia (an inherited disease that causes progressive damage to the nervous system and can result in gait disturbance and speech problems). The second study will investigate the hearing aid and frequency modulation performance in children with auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder (ANSD: a problem with transmission of sound from the inner ear that makes sound disorganized by the time it reaches the brain). The third study will investigate the medial olivocochlear bundle (a tract of nerve fibers that originate in the brainstem and transmit sounds from the ear) and speech-in-noise deficits in children with auditory processing disorders.
The APPL also runs a clinical program targeting the diagnosis and management of ANSD in infants and children, and maintains a database to help identify risk factors that can be helpful for early intervention.