Long-term functional outcomes and academic-occupational status in implanted children after 10 to 14 years of cochlear implant use.

Objectives: To assess a group of consecutively implanted children over 10 years after implantation with regard to implant device use and function, speech perception, and speech intelligibility outcomes; and to document current academic or occupational status.

Study Design: A prospective longitudinal study assessing device function, device use, speech perception, speech intelligibility, and academic/occupational status of implanted deaf children.

Setting: Pediatric tertiary referral center for cochlear implantation.

Methods: The auditory performance and speech intelligibility development of 30 profoundly deaf children were rated before cochlear implantation and at 5 and 10 years after implantation using the Categories of Auditory Performance and the Speech Intelligibility Rating. The academic and/or occupational status of the participants after 10 years of implant experience was documented. All children received a Nucleus multichannel cochlear implant between the ages of 2.5 and 11 years (mean age at implantation, 5.2 yr). Implant experience ranged from 10 to 14 years of use.

Results: After 10 years of implant experience, 26 subjects (87%) reported that they always wore their device; 2 subjects (7%), frequently; and 1 subject (3%), occasionally. Only one child had discontinued use of his device. After 10 years of implant use, 26 (87%) of the children understood a conversation without lip reading and 18 (60%) used the telephone with a familiar speaker. Ten years after implantation, 23 (77%) of the subjects used speech intelligible to an average listener or a listener with little experience of a deaf person's speech. One-third to one-half of the implanted children continued to demonstrate improvements at 5 to 10 years of implant use. Of the 30 implanted children, 8 (26.7%) experienced nine device failures. The length of time from identification of the first faulty electrode to reimplant surgery ranged from 2 weeks to 5.5 years, as several failures were gradual or intermittent. However, all children were successfully reimplanted. At the end of the study (10-14 yr after implantation), 19 subjects were in secondary school for children aged 11 to 16 years: 6 were in mainstream schools, 7 were in specialist hearing-impaired units attached to a mainstream secondary school, and 6 were in schools for the deaf. Of the remaining 11 subjects, 4 were in college studying vocational subjects, 2 were in a university studying for a bachelor's degree, 3 were working full-time, 1 was working and going to a university part-time, and 1 was a full-time mother of two young children.

Conclusion: All but 1 of the 30 implanted children continue using their devices 10 to 14 years after implantation, showing significant progress in speech perception and production. Device failure was frequent, but successful reimplantation occurred in all cases. One-third to one-half of the implanted children in this study continued to demonstrate improvements at 5 to 10 years of implant use. All children are studying or working and are actively involved in their local communities. The results suggest that cochlear implantation provides long-term communication benefit to profoundly deaf children that does not plateau for some subjects even after reimplantation. This study further indicates that cochlear implant centers need the structure and funding to provide long-term support, counseling, audiologic follow-up, rehabilitation, and device monitoring to implanted children.