PERFORMANCE OF THE NEW CLARION SPEECH PROCESSOR-1.2 IN QUIET AND IN NOISE

Objective: To evaluate the benefit of the new Clarion speech processor 1.2. Study Design: Fifty-two subjects who received a Clarion cochlear implant during 1993 and 1995 were upgraded with the new Clarion speec h processor 1.2. All subjects were tested with a speech test battery i n quiet and in noise, first with the 1.0 processor and 1 month later w ith the new 1.2 processor. To avoid ceiling or floor effects, the subj ects were divided into three groups according to their test results wi th the Freiburger Monosyllabic Word Test (group A <10%, group B 10-50% , and group C >50%). Results: The results indicated that all subjects had an improvement with the new speech processor, This improvement was statistically significant (p < 0.05) for group C in all conditions, a nd for group B in the tests with noise. Conclusion: While the better a nd good performers improved their test scores significantly, low perfo rmers seemed to derive little benefit fi om the technical improvements of the same speech processing strategy. Perhaps this group might gain more from a different processing scheme.