Hearing performance with the auditory prosthesis.

With their prostheses activated 12 of 13 subjects were able to respond to sound (bands of noise) at intensities (35-65 dB SPL) that typically arise in the normal acoustic environment. While this "hearing" did allow them to be aware of speech, it did not permit them to understand speech. On the other hand, this "hearing" does seem to help them with identification of common environmental sounds and with lipreading, within the context that those abilities were tested here.