Abstract
AimsCochlear implantation (CI) is established as a standard remedy for children with congenital bilateral profound hearing loss to attain hearing perception and thereby develop speech and language. A subgroup includes children with multiple disabilities in whom the implant helps to improve their quality of life and also of their families via enhanced communication skills. Cochlear implants today form an integral part of their multi-handicap rehabilitation process.Material and MethodsA retrospective cohort study was carried out on children with and without multiple handicaps who have received cochlear implantation at the cochlear implant clinic of MERF, Chennai, India over the past decade. Category of Auditory Performance (CAP) scores, Speech Intelligibility Rating (SIR) scores, and also Meaningful Auditory-Integration Scale (MAIS) and Meaningful Use of Speech Scale (MUSS) scores were compared at set time frequencies of 6 months and 12 months post-implantation between the two groups of implanted children.ResultsAll the four CAP, SIR, MAIS and MUSS scores showed improvement over time with auditory and speech therapy in both groups of children as reflected by the improvement in their quality of life. The normative group of implantees showed better improvement compared to the group of children with multiple disabilities.ConclusionIntensive habilitation is essential especially for children with multiple disabilities who have received cochlear implantation in which their special needs are addressed individually and optimised for the best outcome. The study shows that restoration of the special sense of hearing helps as a remedy to alleviate their other multi-handicaps to a notable extent.
Highlights
Hearing loss in children can have devastating implications for a child’s development and speech and language acquisition thereby ending up as a double tragedy with total loss of natural communication
Cochlear implantation (CI) is today recognised to play an important role in deaf children especially with multiple disabilities to help increase their quality of life and of Indian J Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg their families [3, 4]
Thereby it is inferred that, intensive auditory verbal habilitation helps in gradually achieving optimal outcomes in the multi-handicapped cohort over time provided their special needs are well addressed in the course of their habilitation
Summary
Hearing loss in children can have devastating implications for a child’s development and speech and language acquisition thereby ending up as a double tragedy with total loss of natural communication. Children with multiple disabilities can suffer even more detrimental effects with hearing loss, wherein communication is crucial for their survival and can exacerbate other disabilities whilst putting more pressure as they would require special developmental needs and post-implantation rehabilitation [1, 2]. Cochlear implantation (CI) is today recognised to play an important role in deaf children especially with multiple disabilities to help increase their quality of life and of Indian J Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg their families [3, 4]. In such children, CI has become an integral part in their multi-handicap rehabilitation process [5]. As per Selvarajan et al [6], this is especially since the incidence of congenital profound hearing loss in this part of the world is three times the global incidence due to the age-old practice of consanguineous marriages which has led to admixture of defective gene pools in subsequent generations
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