Age at implantation and communicative outcome in pediatric cochlear implant users: Is younger always better?

Abstract

As with any surgery requiring anesthesia, cochlear implantation in the first few years of life carries potential risks, which makes it especially important to assess potential benefits. In this study, we compared speech perception outcomes in children who received cochlear implants in the first, second, third, or fourth year of life. Among the latter three groups of age at implantation, it was found that earlier implantation resulted in spoken word recognition advantages. Speech perception performance of children implanted during the first year of life was similar to that of the children implanted in the second year of life.