Cochlear implant performance and electrically-evoked auditory brain-stem response characteristics

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to find a correlation between coc hlear implant performances in phoneme discrimination and activity of the br ain-stem. Methods: Electrically-evoked auditory brain-stem responses (EABRs) and spee ch recognition performances were measured in 17 patients implanted with an MXM Digisonic DX10 cochlear implant. Speech recognition performances withou t lip-reading were tested using lists of isolated French words containing 3 phonemes. Results: The results indicated statistically significant correlations betwe en phoneme correct-identification scores and the following EABR variables: wave V latency, wave LI-V latency interval and wave m-V latency interval. T hese results, indicate that up to about 48% of the variance in isolated wor d recognition without lip-reading can be accounted for by EABR variables. Conclusion: The quality of brain-stem functioning influences central proces ses in phoneme discrimination. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All r ights reserved.