Polarity Sensitivity in Pediatric and Adult Cochlear Implant Listeners.

The study included 27 subjects and 41 ears, and it tested only four of the 16 electrodes in each ear, so the findings may not apply to all cochlear implant channels. For 27 of the 328 channel and polarity combinations, a most comfortable listening level could not be reached, and those measurements were excluded from dynamic range analyses. Most participants had unknown hearing loss etiology, so the authors could not test whether etiology relates to polarity sensitivity. The study did not test infants or young children, and most adolescents had been deaf since early childhood, so it does not show what polarity sensitivity looks like in infants or young children. Usual clinical device maps were not available, so the experimental dynamic ranges may not match the participants' everyday programs. The child-implanted group had a limited range of duration of deafness, with the longest 10.1 years, which may have obscured a relationship with polarity sensitivity.

The article is listed as supported by extramural NIH research funding. The supplied text does not include an author conflict-of-interest declaration.

Do not conclude that polarity sensitivity is ready to guide cochlear implant programming or predict speech perception. It varied widely across electrodes, did not differ between child- and adult-implanted listeners, and did not predict vowel or consonant perception.