MULTIVARIATE PREDICTORS OF AUDIOLOGICAL SUCCESS WITH MULTICHANNEL COCHLEAR IMPLANTS

To predict the audiological outcomes of 2 multichannel cochlear implan ts, a preoperative battery of historical, audiological. electrophysiol ogic. and psychologic variables from 48 postlingually deafened adults was tested in a prospective randomized clinical trial. Multivariate an alyses were used to select and combine these preoperative variables in a predictive index that was significantly related to audiological out come at 9 months. The preoperative variables included in the predictiv e index were duration of profound deafness, speech reading ability, re sidual hearing, cognitive ability, measures of compliance and engageme nt with treatment, and use of nonverbal communication strategies. The preoperative predictive index had correlations of .81 with the Iowa Se ntences Test, and .78 with the NU-6 word understanding scores, both ob tained in a sound-only test. Probability and percentile curves generat ed from these data offer considerable optimism in forecasting the rang e of likely audiological outcomes that would be realized by postlingua lly deafened adult candidates for multichannel cochlear implants.