ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES EXPECTED AND REALIZED BY PEDIATRIC COCHLEAR IMPLANT RECIPIENTS AS REPORTED BY THEIR PARENTS

Studies documenting subjective changes in quality of life of pediatric cochlear implant recipients are limited. In this study, parents of co chlear implant recipients completed a questionnaire requesting them to list advantages and disadvantages associated with their children's co chlear implant use. Preimplantation, benefits expected by parents incl uded awareness of environmental sounds (89% of parents), improved spee ch perception (50%), and improved speech production (36%). Disadvantag es expected included equipment maintenance and repair (21% of parents) , slow progression of auditory and speech skills (21%), and resistance to wearing the device (18%). One year postimplantation, benefits repo rted by parents included environmental sound perception (76% of parent s), speech perception (64%), and speech production (52%). Two years po stimplantation, benefits reported by parents included perception of en vironmental sounds (76% of parents), speech perception (67%), and spee ch production (57%). Three years postimplantation, benefits reported i ncluded perception of environmental sounds (61% of parents), speech pe rception (78%), and speech production (74%). Postimplantation, 36%, 24 %, and 52% of the parents had no disadvantages to report at the 1, 2, and 3-year intervals, respectively. At all postimplant intervals, disa dvantages associated with the size and maintenance of equipment were l isted most frequently (36%, 48%, and 22% of parents, respectively). Op en-ended questionnaires may be useful when evaluating a child before o r after cochlear implantation.