Mono-syllabic word test score as a pre-operative assessment criterion for cochlear implant candidature in adults with acquired hearing loss.

Rationale: Cochlear Implant (CI) candidates with a ski-slope hearing loss may be outside current implantation criteria [< 50% on Bamford-Kowal-Bench (BKB) sentence testing], despite having a significant hearing disability and limited benefit from conventional amplification.

Aim: To use existing post-operative performance data to establish a criterion for Arthur Boothroyd (AB) word test for CI candidacy assessment.

Methodology: Retrospective analysis of post-operative AB words scores for 64 CI users was performed and the 10th percentile score selected as a criterion of reasonable chance for post-operative improvement.