Analysis of ceiling effects occurring with speech recognition tests in adult cochlear-implanted patients.
This article presents a simple method of analysing speech test scores which are biased through ceiling effects. Eighty postlingually deafened adults implanted with a MED-EL COMBI 40/40+ cochlear implant (CI) were administered a numbers test and a sentence test at initial device activation and at 1, 3, 6, 12 and 24 months thereafter. As a measure for speech recognition performance, the number of patients who scored at the 'ceiling level' (i.e. at least 95% correct answers) was counted at each test interval. Results showed a quick increase in this number soon after device activation as well as a continuous improvement over time (numbers test: 1 month: 51%; 6 months: 73%; 24 months: 88%; sentence test: 1 month: 33%; 6 months: 49%; 24 months: 64%). The new method allows for the detection of speech recognition progress in CI patient samples even at late test intervals, where improvement curves based on averaged scores are usually assuming a flat shape.
HNO-Universitätsklinik Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.
Jan
J
Helms
Viktor
V
Weichbold
Uwe
U
Baumann
Hellmut
H
von Specht
Franz
F
Schön
Joachim
J
Müller
Barbara
B
Esser
Michael
M
Ziese
Ilona
I
Anderson
Patrick
P
D'Haese
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003054:Cochlear Implants; D003638:Deafness / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D013069:Speech Reception Threshold Test; D013997:Time Factors