Functional hearing quality in prelingually deaf school-age children and adolescents with cochlear implants.
William G Kronenberger, Hannah Bozell, Shirley C Henning and 3 others
PMID 33000660WHAT IT FOUND
Parents reported that children with cochlear implants use significantly more listening effort and hear worse in noise than normal-hearing peers.
This parent-reported functional hearing quality correlated strongly with the child's speech, language, and executive functioning, independent of standard audiogram results.
Key findings
01Children with cochlear implants scored significantly lower on parent-reported functional hearing than normal-hearing peers, particularly in noisy environments, and reported using more listening effort.
02Parent-reported functional hearing quality in children with cochlear implants was significantly correlated with their performance on standardized tests of speech perception, language, and verbal working memory.
03Functional hearing quality was not significantly associated with traditional audiological measures like pure-tone averages or age at implantation in this sample.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study design is correlational, so it cannot prove that poor functional hearing causes deficits in language or executive functioning. Audiological history data were incomplete for some participants due to missing medical records. The normal-hearing group had limited speech perception data because they performed at ceiling on standard tests. Reliance on parent-report for functional hearing and executive functioning introduces potential bias, as parents may not fully understand their child's internal listening experience.
Declared interests
One author is a paid consultant to Shire Pharmaceuticals and Homology Medicines, neither of which sells cochlear implants or the hearing aids discussed.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that a child with a cochlear implant who has good audiometric thresholds has good functional hearing. The study shows that functional hearing quality and listening effort vary independently of standard hearing tests and are more closely tied to real-world communication and cognitive performance.