Bilateral sequential cochlear implantation in the congenitally deaf child: evidence to support the concept of a 'critical age' after which the second ear is less likely to provide an adequate level of speech perception on its own.

This study attempts to answer the question of whether there is a 'critical age' after which a second contralateral cochlear implant is less likely to provide enough speech perception to be of practical use. The study was not designed to predict factors that determine successful binaural implant use, but to see if there was evidence to help determine the latest age at which the second ear can usefully be implanted, should the first side fail and become unusable.Outcome data, in the form of speech perception test results, were collected from 11 cochlear implant programmes in the UK and one centre in Australia.

Self-reported benefits from successive bilateral cochlear implantation in post-lingually deafened adults: randomised controlled trial.

Adult users of unilateral Nucleus CI24 cochlear implants with the SPEAK processing strategy were randomised either to receive a second identical implant in the contralateral ear immediately, or to wait 12 months while they acted as controls for late-emerging benefits of the first implant. Twenty four subjects, twelve from each group, completed the study. Receipt of a second implant led to improvements in self-reported abilities in spatial hearing, quality of hearing, and hearing for speech, but to generally non-significant changes in measures of quality of life.

Evaluation of bilaterally implanted adult subjects with the nucleus 24 cochlear implant system.

Objective: To evaluate the speech perception benefits of bilateral implantation for subjects who already have one implant.

Study Design: Repeated measures.

Patients: Thirty adult cochlear implant users who received their second implant from 1 to 7 years with a mean of 3 years after their first device.

Speech processing strategy preferences among 55 European CLARION cochlear implant users.

This multicentre study investigates the preference and performance of a group of 55 adult CLARION cochlear implant users with the choice of simultaneous analogue stimulation (SAS) and continuous interleaved sampler (CIS) strategies during the first 3 months of implant use. Subjects were programmed with both strategies and instructed to use each of the two strategies in daily life to ascertain preference. Subjects were tested in both strategies with open-set sentence materials, auditory alone, at 2, 6 and 12 weeks after the initial programming session.