Speech perception in children with auditory neuropathy/dyssynchrony managed with either hearing AIDS or cochlear implants.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate speech perception skills in children with auditory neuropathy (AN)/auditory dyssynchrony (AD)-type hearing loss managed with either hearing aids or cochlear implants.

STUDY DESIGN

Prospective data collection in 3 subject groups: AN/AD children fitted with bilateral amplification, AN/AD children fitted with cochlear implant (in 1 or both ears), and a matched control group of implanted children with sensorineural hearing loss.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE

Open-set monosyllabic words (consonant-nucleus-consonant).

RESULTS

Of the 10 implanted AN/AD children, 9 demonstrated significant speech discrimination (consonant-nucleus-consonant phoneme score > or =55%). Similar results were obtained for the aided AN/AD group. Findings for both AN/AD subject groups were poorer than those of the implanted sensorineural cohort.

CONCLUSION

Cochlear implantation can offer useful hearing in subjects with AN/AD-type hearing loss. However, expectations for this group may need to be lower than for patients with peripheral (cochlear) loss.