Speech-processing strategies designed for children.

Abstract

The design of cochlear prosthetic hardware and speech-processing strategies has been driven largely by psychophysical data from postlingually deafened adults with implants. In such subjects, success is related to the ability of the electrical stimulation to evoke the same patterns of neural activity and hence the same percepts as were produced formerly by acoustic input. Adults differ greatly in their ability to make use of information provided through electrical stimulation, particularly as temporal patterns. Recent research suggests that the manner in which information is processed in the auditory nervous system can be influenced by the type of information that is available during development of hearing. Because cochlear prostheses are used increasingly in prelingually deaf children, we must face the difficult task of designing and testing speech-processing strategies that are more appropriate for developing nervous systems whose first and only experience with sound comes from electrical stimulation.