Optimizing the Clinical Fit of Auditory Brain Stem Implants

Abstract

The proposed procedure requires fewer trials to produce a clinically useful result and is well tolerated in the clinic. An additional advantage is that it allows testing to be broken down into several "blocks," each containing a small number of trials. If the variability between blocks is small, information can be combined across blocks to increase the accuracy of the result. If the variability is large, perhaps between blocks on different days, this may reflect a significant change in the percepts generated by the implant, and signal to the clinician that a significant alteration in the fitting is required. We recommend its use in ABI user fitting and in cochlear implant fitting when pitch ranking is problematic.