DESCRIPTION OF THE CID SENSORY AIDS STUDY

The Central Institute for the Deaf (CID) Sensory Aids Study was design ed to evaluate the benefits for deaf children of the Nucleus 22 Channe l Cochlear Implant and the Tactaid tactile aid over and above the bene fits typically achieved through acoustic hearing aids. Triads of child ren, one wearing a cochlear implant, one wearing a tactile aid and hea ring aids, and one wearing on ly hearing aids, were matched on a numbe r of factors, including age, hearing loss, intelligence, speech produc tion, and spoken language skills. Each triad was enrolled in the CID S chool and followed for three years. Because all the children were in t he same educational program, it was possible to separate the effects o f the device from the effects of instruction. A battery of tests was a dministered at the beginning of the study and at least annually over t he three-year period. This chapter contains a detailed description of the experimental design and the subjects who comprised the sample for the results described in chapters 7, 8, and 9.