title: Is there a right cochlear implant advantage?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To compare behavioral speech perception performance of children with right versus left cochlear implants (CIs).
  
  
  METHODS
  A retrospective cohort study.
  
  
  METHODS
  Academic university medical center.
  
  
  METHODS
  Seventy-one prelingually deafened children that obtained a CI device at 48 months or younger.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cochlear implantation with Cochlear, Advanced Bionics, and Med-El devices.
  
  
  METHODS
  Patients were divided into 2 groups according to ear of implant (right, n = 30; left, n = 41) and matched in age at implantation and preoperative audiologic results. Multivariate analysis of variance was used to evaluate the effects of 1) side of CI, 2) age at implantation, 3) time with CI (T1, 18-24 mo; T2, 36-42 mo), and 4) dominance (i.e., compatibility between CI side and handedness) on performance in a monosyllabic open-set test scored for words and phonemes.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A small yet significant "right CI advantage" was evident throughout the study follow-up and was independent of age at implantation. The performance of children implanted at 24 months or younger was significantly higher than that of children implanted between 25 and 48 months. Regardless of CI side and age at implantation, all children exhibited improvement in speech perception with continuous use.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The present study provides first-time evidence for a right CI advantage for speech perception in prelingually deafened children that can be taken into account when selecting side of CI in candidates with similar residual hearing in both ears and no anatomic constraints. The present data lend further support to the notions that greater gains in speech perception are associated with earlier age at implantation and continuous use.
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication Disorders, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel. henkin@post.tau.ac.il
authors.forename: Yael
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Henkin
authors.forename: Riki
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Taitelbaum-Swead
authors.forename: Minka
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hildesheimer
authors.forename: Lela
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Migirov
authors.forename: Jona
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kronenberg
authors.forename: Liat
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Kishon-Rabin
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology; D000465:Algorithms; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002675:Child, Preschool; D019929:Cochlear Implantation; D003054:Cochlear Implants; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*