A clinical assessment of cochlear implant recipient performance: implications for individualized map settings in specific environments.
Individual speech intelligibility was measured in quiet and noise for cochlear Implant recipients upgrading from the Freedom to the CP900 series sound processor. The postlingually deafened participants (n = 23) used either Nucleus CI24RE or CI512 cochlear implant, and currently wore a Freedom sound processor. A significant group mean improvement in speech intelligibility was found in quiet (Freiburg monosyllabic words at 50 dBSPL) and in noise (adaptive Oldenburger sentences in noise) for the two CP900 series SmartSound programs compared to the Freedom program. Further analysis was carried out on individual's speech intelligibility outcomes in quiet and in noise. Results showed a significant improvement or decrement for some recipients when upgrading to the new programs. To further increase speech intelligibility outcomes when upgrading, an enhanced upgrade procedure is proposed that includes additional testing with different signal-processing schemes. Implications of this research are that future automated scene analysis and switching technologies could provide additional performance improvements by introducing individualized scene-dependent settings.
Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Audiology, Christian-Albrechts-University, Kiel, Germany. hey@audio.uni-kiel.de.
Matthias
M
Hey
Cochlear Deutschland, Hannover, Germany.
Thomas
T
Hocke
Cochlear Limited, Melbourne, Australia.
Stefan
S
Mauger
Audiology Consultant, Kiel, Germany.
Joachim
J
Müller-Deile
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002648:Child; D019929:Cochlear Implantation / Q000379:methods; D003054:Cochlear Implants; D004777:Environment; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009622:Noise; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D059629:Signal-To-Noise Ratio; D013065:Speech Intelligibility; D013067:Speech Perception
Audiometry; Cochlear implant; Individual programming; Signal processing; Speech; Speech intelligibility