Cochlear implants in adults with prelinguistic deafness: do auditory gains match the subjective benefits?

Abstract

Introduction Studies on adults with congenital and prelingual deafness suggest very limited speech recognition gains. In addition, clinical experience shows that these adults are at high risk for device non-use. On the other hand, a growing number of studies suggest that despite limited auditory improvement, the majority of congenitally deaf adults continue to use their cochlear implant (CI); they also report benefits and satisfaction with the device (Chee et al., 2004; Kaplan et al., 2003). Thus, it appears that speech recognition performance does not fully capture the impact of CI in everyday life, particularly in this population. It is also important to examine personal and environmental factors that contribute to the impression of success (or nonsuccess) with the implant. Our research questions were the following: 1. What is the actual auditory (and speech production) performance of a group of early-deafened adults? 2. What are their impression of usefulness and level of satisfaction toward CI despite possible poor auditory results? 3. Are subjective benefits associated with speech recognition performance?