Adaptation of “Adult Aural Rehabilitation Guide” in Marathi and its Utility in Evaluation of Postlingual Adult Cochlear Implanted Recipients

Abstract

Introduction: There is a need for a systematic assessment and training module in Marathi to ascertain the auditory performance of adult cochlear implantation (CI) recipients and to provide a standard regimen for treatment. The present study aimed to adapt the adult aural rehabilitation guide (AARG) in Marathi and to evaluate the performance of adult CI recipients using this tool; and to study the effect of chronological age, duration of the unaided hearing, postimplant duration (PID), and presence/absence of training on the auditory performance of adult CI recipients. Methods: Analytic and synthetic sections from the AARG were adapted in Marathi based on the acoustic-phonetic properties of Marathi. Two separate manuals – assessment manual and training manual – were developed. The assessment tool was administered on 26 adult postlingual CI recipients who were native speakers of Marathi. Training manual was used in two participants for a step-by-step aural rehabilitation program of eight sessions. Results: Most participants achieved scores above 20 for the analytic section, but <20 in synthetic section, out of a maximum score of 29. The difficulty was greater for open-set tasks, for sentences with uncommon words, and for longer sentences. Recipients could not use auditory commands for information transfer, seeking information, and in role-play. There was no correlation of auditory performance with chronological age, duration of unaided hearing, and PID of participants. The scores obtained were correlated to the presence/absence of previous rehabilitation. Conclusion: This study could successfully bring out a systematic assessment protocol in Marathi for postlingual CI recipients, and developed a systematic training module for their rehabilitation.