Study of the performance of four prelinguistically or perilinguistically deaf patients with a multi-electrode, intracochlear implant.

Abstract

Individuals who are born deaf or become deaf in early childhood and are implanted as adults (or in late adolescence) with a multi-electrode, intracochlear implant often cannot understand speech by audition alone. Test results of four implanted patients were analyzed to determine 1. if there was a difference in performance between patients; 2. if there was a relation between performance and history of auditory stimulation; and 3. which tests revealed performance differences. On audition-only and audition-plus-vision tests, overall performance was rank-ordered from lowest to highest for patients 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively. Patient 4 recognized a few words audition-only. Patients 1 and 2 had long periods of no auditory stimulation; patients 3 and 4 had long periods of auditory stimulation with hearing aids prior to implantation. Tests not revealing differences in performance were identified.