Mw. Skinner et al., Comparison of two methods for selecting minimum stimulation levels used inprogramming the nucleus 22 cochlear implant, J SPEECH L, 42(4), 1999, pp. 814-828
Minimum stimulation levels for active electrodes in a Nucleus 22 cochlear i
mplant were set at threshold (clinical default value) and raised levels (M
= +2.04 dB) to determine if raised levels would improve recipients' underst
anding of soft speech sounds with the SPEAK speech coding strategy. Eight p
ostlinguistically deaf adults participated in a 4-phase A(1)B(1)A(2)B(2) te
st design. Speech recognition was evaluated with consonant-vowel nucleus-co
nsonant (CNC) words in quiet and sentences in noise, both presented at 50,
60, and 70 dB SPL during 2 weekly sessions at the end of each phase. Group
mean scores were significantly higher with the raised level program for wor
ds and phonemes at 50 and 60 dB SPL and for sentences at 50 and 70 dB SPL.
All participants chose to use the raised level program in everyday life at
the end of the study The results suggest that clinical use of a raised leve
l program for Nucleus 22 recipients has the potential to make soft sounds l
ouder and, therefore, more salient in everyday life. Further research is ne
eded to determine if this approach is appropriate for other cochlear implan
t devices.