Abstract
Studies have demonstrated the benefits of low frequency residual hearing in music perception and for psychoacoustic abilities of adult cochlear implant (CI) users, but less is known about these effects in the pediatric group. Understanding the contribution of combined electric and acoustic stimulation in this group can help to gain a better perspective on decisions regarding bilateral implantation. We evaluated the performance of six unilaterally implanted children between 9 and 13 years of age with contralateral residual hearing using the Clinical Assessment of Music Perception (CAMP), spectral ripple discrimination (SRD), and temporal modulation transfer function (TMTF) tests and compared findings with previous research. Our study sample performed similarly to normal hearing subjects in pitch direction discrimination (0.81 semitones) and performed well above typical CI users in melody recognition (43.37%). The performance difference was less in timbre recognition (48.61%), SRD (1.47 ripple/octave), and TMTF for four modulation frequencies. These findings suggest that the combination of low frequency acoustic hearing with the broader frequency range of electric hearing can help to increase clinical CI benefit in pediatric users and decisions regarding second-side implantation should consider these factors.
Highlights
Deaf patients can receive cochlear implants (CIs) and the advantages of electrical stimulation in restoring hearing capacity and speech understanding are well known
Hybrid CI users performed significantly better than standard CI users on both tests and similar to normal hearing subjects in melody recognition with lyrics
Golub et al (2012) compared Hybrid CI recipients with standard CI recipients and pitch perception and spectral ripple discrimination (SRD) performance were significantly better in the Hybrid group and there was no advantage of residual acoustic hearing for temporal sensitivity
Summary
Deaf patients can receive cochlear implants (CIs) and the advantages of electrical stimulation in restoring hearing capacity and speech understanding are well known. Combining acoustic hearing with electric stimulation, if available, can be advantageous and CI users who have residual low frequency hearing in the non-implanted ear or in the implanted ear can perform better on such tasks (Gantz and Turner, 2004; Gantz et al, 2006; Golub et al, 2012; Roland et al, 2016). Hybrid (Cochlear Ltd., Sydney) or EAS (MED-EL, Innsbruck, Austria) hearing, or benefit from the residual hearing in the contralateral non-implanted ear, so-called bimodal hearing, with or without a hearing aid. The aim of both methods is to combine the high frequency information of electrical stimuli with the low frequency information of acoustic hearing to provide better spectral and temporal information via the combination than a CI can provide alone
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