Auditory performance and subjective benefits in adults with congenital or prelinguistic deafness who receive cochlear implants during adulthood

Abstract

Objectives: (1) To describe auditory performance and subjective benefits in adults with congenital or prelingual deafness who received a cochlear implant (CI) during adolescence or adulthood, and (2) to examine the benefits as experienced by these CI users.Methods: Twenty-one adults aged 23–65 years participated in the study. All had a congenital or prelingual deafness (onset before age 3). They received a CI between the age of 16 and 61 years (mean age: 31). Speech recognition scores before and after implantation were computed and a questionnaire on subjective benefits (French adaptation of the Adult Cochlear Implant Questionnaire, designed by Zwolan and collaborators (1996, Self-report of CI use and satisfaction by prelingually deafened adults. Ear and Hearing, 17(3): 198–210) was administered. Semi-structured interviews were subsequently conducted with a subsample of seven participants.Results: Speech recognition scores after implantation ranged from 0 to 95%. Despite large inter-individual variability, most participants expressed high levels satisfaction and overall usefulness. Correlational analyses showed that speech recognition performance was moderately associated with subjective benefits. Data from the interviews revealed that the underlying sources of satisfaction with the implant are related to the discovery and enjoyment of environmental sounds, easier lip-reading, and improvement of self-confidence during communicative interactions.Discussion/conclusion: CI benefits are mostly subjective in this particular population: descriptive and qualitative approaches allow us to obtain a nuanced portrait of their experience and provide us with important elements that are not easily measurable with tests and scores.