Phoneme recognition in bimodal hearing

Abstract

BackgroundMany unilateral cochlear implant (CI) users have residual hearing in the nonimplanted ear, allowing them to use bimodal hearing. Assessing the hearing aid (HA) contribution is important.ObjectiveTo examine the contribution of a contralateral HA in unilateral CI users with severe-profound hearing loss (HL) in the non-implanted ear to phonetic features perception.Participants and method: Monosyllabic word test in noise was used to assess the phonetic features perception in 29 adult bimodal users with severe-profound HL and only minimal speech recognition using HA alone in the nonimplanted ear.ResultsFor all consonants and vowel features, participants scored better in the bimodal condition than in the CI-alone condition. Better low frequencies thresholds in the HA ear correlated with better perception of phonetic features in the bimodal condition.ConclusionCI/HA users with only minimal speech recognition using HA alone in the nonimplanted ear extract low-frequency information provided by the HA ear and combine it with information coming from the implanted ear.Significance: The results of the study provide a reasoning for unilateral CI users to insist on using a contralateral HA as long as contralateral implantation is not performed, and suggest how to monitor the benefit derived from the HA.