Binaural Cue Sensitivity in Children and Adults With Combined Electric and Acoustic Stimulation
Hearts for Hearing
Summary
Cochlear implants are surgically implanted devices which restore the ability to hear to the hearing impaired. Improvements in surgery and electrodes have results in an increased number of adults and children who have residual hearing and can benefit from electric and acoustic hearing in the same ear. This is called Electric Acoustic Stimulation (EAS). Many studies have shown that adult EAS users show significant benefits for speech understanding in noise and spatial hearing tasks as compared to a CI paired only with a contralateral HA. Even though this type of hearing is becoming more common, there is limited research on how it can be beneficial to children with CIs. The benefits of this study are a greater understanding of the participant's speech understanding, binaural processing, and spatial hearing. The results will help audiologists and researcher better understand how cochlear implants work, specifically when using electric and acoustic hearing in the same ear.
Description
Cochlear implantation with minimally traumatic surgical techniques and atraumatic electrode arrays has led to an increasing prevalence of adult and pediatric cochlear implant (CI) recipients with the potential for combined Electric and binaural Acoustic Stimulation (EAS). Many studies have demonstrated that adult EAS users consistently exhibit significant benefits for speech understanding in noise and spatial hearing tasks as compared to a CI paired only with a contralateral HA. Research has also demonstrated that sensitivity to interaural time difference (ITD) and interaural level difference…