Bone Conduction Amplification in Children: Stimulation via a Percutaneous Abutment versus a Transcutaneous Softband.
Andrea L Pittman
PMID 30870242WHAT IT FOUND
Children with hearing loss learned new words twice as fast with an implanted bone conduction abutment than with a softband.
They also identified unfamiliar words better. These benefits were largest in younger children and those with poorer softband performance.
Key findings
01Children required 24 trials to reach 50% performance in a rapid word learning task with an abutment, compared to 60 trials with a softband.
02Lexical decision performance improved by 13% on average with the abutment compared to the softband.
03Younger children experienced benefit from direct stimulation for a wider range of auditory tasks than older children.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study included only 17 children, and data were excluded for three participants due to equipment failure or task misunderstanding. The sample was homogeneous regarding age and hearing history, which may limit generalizability to more diverse populations. The nonsense-word detection task showed no significant benefit, contrary to expectations based on previous research. The study did not compare the abutment to other transcutaneous options like implanted magnets, only to the softband.
Declared interests
The project was funded by a grant from Oticon Medical, the manufacturer of the devices tested. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume the abutment improves all auditory tasks equally. While word learning and lexical decision improved, nonsense-word detection sensitivity did not show a statistically significant difference between the abutment and softband conditions.