The Influence of Auditory Feedback and Vocal Rehabilitation on Prelingual Hearing-Impaired Individuals Post Cochlear Implant.

Objective: To verify changes in the perceptual and acoustic vocal parameters in prelingual hearing-impaired adults with cochlear implants after vocal rehabilitation.

Hypothesis: Auditory feedback restoration alone after cochlear implant is not enough for vocal adjustments. A targeted and specific voice therapy intervention is required.

Speech perception in adolescents with pre-lingual hearing impairment with cochlear implants.

Unlabelled: Profound hearing loss is a disability that affects personality and when it involves teenagers before language acquisition, these bio-psychosocial conflicts can be exacerbated, requiring careful evaluation and choice of them for cochlear implant.

Aim: To evaluate speech perception by adolescents with profound hearing loss, users of cochlear implants.

Study Design: Prospective.

Voice analysis of postlingually deaf adults pre- and postcochlear implantation.

Objectives: To ascertain whether cochlear implantation (CI), without specific vocal rehabilitation, is associated with changes in perceptual and acoustic vocal parameters in adults with severe to profound postlingual deafness.

Hypothesis: Merely restoring auditory feedback could allow the individual to make necessary adjustments in vocal pattern.

Study Design: Prospective and longitudinal.

Cochlear implant: correlation of nerve function recovery, auditory deprivation and etiology.

Background: The Auditory Nerve Recovery Function (REC) may be extracted from the Electrically Evoked Compound Action Potential (ECAP). ECAP may be influenced by the stimulation received (or the deprivation of stimulation) and by the etiology of the hearing loss, consequently it might affect the REC.

Aim: To verify whether there is a correlation between the REC and each of the following factors: etiology, time of auditory deprivation and time of hearing aid use before cochlear implantation (CI).

Influence of evoked compound action potential on speech perception in cochlear implant users.

Unlabelled: Electrically Evoked Compound Action Potential is a measure of synchronous cochlear nerve fibers activity elicited by electrical stimulation of the cochlear implant. The electrophysiological nerve responses may contribute to explain the variability in individual performance of cochlear implant recipients.

Aim: To compare speech perception tests performances of cochlear implant users according to the presence or absence of intraoperative neural telemetry responses.

Neural response telemetry measures in patients implanted with Nucleus 24.

Unlabelled: Cochlear implantation has been recommended for children under 24 months of age. The use of objective measures is needed to help speech processor programming. The electrically evoked compound potential (EAP), which can be assessed by neural response telemetry (NRT), is one of those objective measures.