Aural/Oral Performance of Children with Cochlear Implant under Monaural and Bimodal Listening Conditions: A Parental Evaluation

Pooja Waghulde

doi:10.11648/j.cls.20190501.12

Abstract

The study assessed the performance of children with cochlear implant (CI) under monaural and bimodal listening conditions using Parental Evaluation of Aural/Oral Performance of Children (PEACH) questionnaire. A total of 74 children using CI and their parents (either of the biological parent) served as subjects in the present study. The subjects were further divided into two groups based on mode of stimulation used in CI. Group I consisted of children using monaural stimulation in CI i.e. unilateral CI (monaural group). Group II consisted of children using bimodal stimulation in CI i.e. CI in one ear and hearing aid in opposite ear (bimodal group). The results revealed that the subjects of both groups performed significantly poorer under noisy listening conditions compared to quiet listening conditions. The subjects of both the groups performed similar under quiet listening environment. Although, both the groups performed similar under quiet listening condition, the subjects of bimodal group demonstrated significant improvement in aural/oral performance as compared to the subjects of monaural group under noisy listening environment. Thus, it can be inferred that bimodal stimulation in CI provides additional benefits as compared to monaural stimulation in CI especially under noisy listening environments. The findings of the present study complement the existing objective test results which have reported positive outcomes from bimodal stimulation in CI recipients.

Highlights

Cochlear implantation has become a standard procedure in the treatment of pre-lingual hearing impaired children in the last decade [1]
The results revealed that there was a statistically significant difference (p
It can be inferred that there was a significant reduction in aural-oral performance under noisy listening environment among the subjects of combined monaural and bimodal groups. 3.1.2

Summary

Introduction

Cochlear implantation has become a standard procedure in the treatment of pre-lingual hearing impaired children in the last decade [1]. Cochlear implantation has dramatically changed the outcomes of children with severe-to-profound hearing loss by providing them with auditory information that is not obtainable through conventional hearing aid (HA) technology [2,3,4]. Children with cochlear implant (CI) are able to achieve auditory skills that exceed those of their nonimplanted peers with severe-to-profound hearing loss who use HA. This is true with regard to higher levels of open-set speech recognition performance [5]. The low-frequency pitch information, i.e. the fundamental frequency (F0) cues is poorly transmitted through electric stimulation [6,7].

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion