Results from the paediatric cochlear implant programme at Utrecht/Effatha

Abstract

Objective. To measure the benefit of paediatric cochlear implantation. Patients and methods. In the period from 1994 to 1999, 41 children received a nucleus cochlear implant at the University Hospital, Utrecht. With a few exceptions the children were enrolled in a total communication or bilingual education programme. A battery of tests were used that measured the progress in the (auditory) communication and language skills of the children. Results. Almost all children showed progress between the different sets of evaluation. The observed progress can be explained by the effect of the implant but also by the ageing of the child. We wanted to separate these two effects. To achieve this we also included the evaluation data of a control group of deaf children who had not received a cochlear implant. One obstacle to the analysis is the large variability in the data, in which important elements are the age at implantation and individual (pre-implant) communication skills. Conclusion. After analysing the data, while taking into account the variability, we found considerable differences between individual results, with some children being excellent and others being poor performers.