title: Audio-visual speech perception in noise: Implanted children and young adults versus normal hearing peers.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of the current study was to evaluate auditory, visual and audiovisual speech perception abilities among two groups of cochlear implant (CI) users: prelingual children and long-term young adults, as compared to their normal hearing (NH) peers.
  
  
  METHODS
  Prospective cohort study that included 50 participants, divided into two groups of CI (10 children and 10 adults), and two groups of normal hearing peers (15 participants each). Speech stimuli included monosyllabic meaningful and nonsense words in a signal to noise ratio of 0 dB. Speech stimuli were introduced via auditory, visual and audiovisual modalities.
  
  
  RESULTS
  (1) CI children and adults show lower speech perception accuracy with background noise in audiovisual and auditory modalities, as compared to NH peers, but significantly higher visual speech perception scores. (2) CI children are superior to CI adults in speech perception in noise via auditory modality, but inferior in the visual one. Both CI children and CI adults had similar audiovisual integration.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings of the current study show that in spite of the fact that the CI children were implanted bilaterally, at a very young age, and using advanced technology, they still have difficulties in perceiving speech in adverse listening conditions even when adding the visual modality. This suggests that adding audiovisual training might be beneficial for this group by improving their audiovisual integration in difficult listening situations.
authors.affiliation: Ariel University, Department of Communication Disorders, Israel; Meuhedet Health Services, Israel. Electronic address: rikits@ariel.ac.il.
authors.forename: Riki
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Taitelbaum-Swead
authors.affiliation: Ariel University, Department of Communication Disorders, Israel. Electronic address: leahfo@ariel.ac.il.
authors.forename: Leah
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Fostick
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception; D002648:Child; D019929:Cochlear Implantation / Q000379:methods*; D003054:Cochlear Implants / Q000009:adverse effects*; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009622:Noise; D011446:Prospective Studies; D059629:Signal-To-Noise Ratio; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology; D014796:Visual Perception; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Audio visual speech perception; Children; Cochlear implant; Speech reading