Effect of Age and Unaided Acoustic Hearing on Pediatric Cochlear Implant Users' Ability to Distinguish Yes/No Statements and Questions.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the ability to discriminate yes/no questions from statements in three groups of children: bilateral cochlear implant (CI) users, nontraditional CI users with aidable hearing preoperatively in the ear to be implanted, and controls with normal hearing. Half of the nontraditional CI users had sufficient postoperative acoustic hearing in the implanted ear to use electric-acoustic stimulation, and half used a CI alone.

Method: Participants heard recorded sentences that were produced either as yes/no questions or as statements by three male and three female talkers.