Acoustic plus Electric Speech Processing: Preliminary Results of a Multicenter Clinical Trial of the Iowa/Nucleus Hybrid Implant

Abstract

The improvement of speech in noise and melody recognition is linked to the ability to distinguish fine pitch differences as the result of preserved residual low-frequency acoustic hearing. Both of these measures are very important in real life to the hearing impaired. Preservation of residual low-frequency hearing should be considered when expanding candidate selection criteria for standard cochlear implants.