title: Speech intelligibility of pediatric cochlear implant recipients with 7 years of device experience.
abstract: Speech intelligibility of 24 prelingually deaf pediatric cochlear implant (CI) recipients with 84 months of device experience was investigated. Each CI participant's speech samples were judged by a panel of 3 listeners. Intelligibility scores were calculated as the average of the 3 listeners' responses. The average write-down intelligibility score was 71.54% (SD = 29.89), and the average rating-scale intelligibility score was 3.03 points (SD = 1.01). Write-down and rating-scale intelligibility scores were highly correlated (r = .91, p < .001). Linear regression analyses revealed that both age at implantation and different speech-coding strategies contribute to the variability of CI participants' speech intelligibility. Implantation at a younger age and the use of the spectral-peak speech-coding strategy yielded higher intelligibility scores than implantation at an older age and the use of the multipeak speech-coding strategy. These results serve as indices for clinical applications when long-term advancements in spoken-language development are considered for pediatric CI recipients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, University of Iowa, Iowa City 52242-1012, USA. shu-chen-peng@uiowa.edu
authors.forename: Shu-Chen
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.forename: Linda J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Spencer
authors.forename: J Bruce
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Tomblin
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D002648:Child; D019929:Cochlear Implantation / Q000379:methods*; D003054:Cochlear Implants; D012048:Correction of Hearing Impairment; D003638:Deafness / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000534:rehabilitation / Q000601:surgery*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011182:Postoperative Care; D013065:Speech Intelligibility; D016896:Treatment Outcome