SPEECH-PERCEPTION PERFORMANCE OF CHILDREN WITH A COCHLEAR IMPLANT COMPARED TO THAT OF CHILDREN WITH CONVENTIONAL HEARING-AIDS .2. RESULTS OF PRELINGUALLY DEAF-CHILDREN

In a previous paper, a method was introduced to transform the results obtained by children with a cochlear implant (CI) on a battery of spee ch perception tests into an overall value, the ''equivalent hearing lo ss'' value. This was achieved by matching the speech perception test s cores with those of a reference group of children with conventional he aring aids and hearing loss ranging from 50 to 130 dB hearing level (H L). The equivalent hearing loss values of 16 prelingually deaf childre n with a CI were plotted as a function of time. There was considerable spread in the rate of progress made by the childeren in terms of the equivalent hearing loss values. The variables studied, age at onset of deafness/duration of deafness (in the present study, these two factor s were indistinguishable) and the communication mode used at the child ren's school, accounted for 64% of the variance in speech perception p erformance. A plateau in the performance of the better performers was found which seemed to be caused by the level of hearing (the aided thr esholds) with the CI.