title: Comparison of outcomes in children with hearing aids and cochlear implants.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of this study was to document the performance of a group of children with moderately severe to severe hearing loss who use hearing aids on a range of speech recognition, speech-language, and literacy measures and to compare these results to children  with severe to profound hearing loss, who have learned language through cochlear implants.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study involved 41 children with bilateral sensorineural hearing impairment, aged 6-18 years. Twenty children had moderately severe/severe hearing loss and used  hearing aids, and 21 had severe to profound hearing loss and used cochlear implants. Communication and academic skills were assessed using speech recognition tests and standardized measures of speech production, language, phonology, and literacy.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The two groups  did not differ in their open-set speech recognition abilities or speech production skills. However, children with hearing aids obtained higher scores than their peers with cochlear implants in the domains of receptive vocabulary, language, phonological memory, and reading comprehension. The  findings also indicate that children with moderately severe or severe hearing loss can develop spoken language skills that are within the range expected for normal hearing children.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  School-aged children with moderately severe and severe hearing loss performed  better in several domains than their peers with profound hearing loss who received cochlear implants between age 2 and 5 years. Further research is required to evaluate the benefits of hearing aids and cochlear implants in children with hearing loss who are diagnosed and receive intervention  within the first year of life.
authors.affiliation: University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. elizabeth.fitzpatrick@uottawa.ca
authors.forename: Elizabeth M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Fitzpatrick
authors.forename: Janet
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Olds
authors.forename: Isabelle
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Gaboury
authors.forename: Rosemary
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: McCrae
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Schramm
authors.forename: Andrée
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Durieux-Smith
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000367:Age Factors; D001299:Audiometry / Q000379:methods; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D002648:Child; D019929:Cochlear Implantation / Q000379:methods*; D003054:Cochlear Implants; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D015331:Cohort Studies; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006310:Hearing Aids / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006312:Hearing Loss, Bilateral / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000628:therapy*; D006319:Hearing Loss, Sensorineural / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000628:therapy*; D006776:Hospitals, Pediatric; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009864:Ontario; D011788:Quality of Life; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013065:Speech Intelligibility; D013067:Speech Perception; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D016896:Treatment Outcome