Cochlear Implant Use by Prelingually Deafened Children

TLDR

The study evaluated 34 prelingually deafened children with Cochlear multichannel implants, grouping them by age at implantation and daily device use, and administering annual speech perception tests. All children improved from pre‑operative levels, but only those implanted before age 5 showed significantly better open‑set word recognition at 36‑ and 48‑month intervals, while daily use influenced all measures except pattern perception, and closed‑set performance did not differ by age at implantation.

Abstract

This study focused on the long-term speech perception performances of 34 prelingually deafened children who received multichannel cochlear implants manufactured by Cochlear Corporation. The children were grouped by the age at which they received cochlear implants and were characterized by the amount of time they used their devices per day. A variety of speech perception tests were administered to the children at annual intervals following the connection of the external implant hardware. No significant differences in performance are evident for children implanted before age 5 compared to children implanted after age 5 on closed-set tests of speech perception ability. All children demonstrated an improvement in performance compared to the pre-operative condition. Open-set word recognition performance is significantly better for children implanted before age 5 compared to children implanted after age 5 at the 36-month test interval and the 48-month test interval. User status, defined by the amount of daily use of the implant, significantly affects all measures of speech perception performance except pattern perception.