Analysis of Post Implantation Speech Recognition Abilities of Children with Hearing Impairment Using Cochlear Implants

Abstract

Background: As per census’2011, in India, there are 15, 94,249 children with hearing impairment below 18 years of age. A current method in treating children with hearing impairment is cochlear implantation. The use of cochlear implants aids in improving auditory detection, discrimination, identification and speech recognition. Although, speech recognition is a primary outcome measure in cochlear implantees, there is a paucity of word lists or tests to assess speech recognition abilities, both in local languages in general and Hindi in particular. Methods: In order to construct word lists comprising of monosyllabic and multisyllabic, easy and hard words, language samples from children (3 - 5 years of age, n = 120) were collected in order to create a database to select stimuli from. The frequency of occurrence and neighborhood density for the words selected from this database was then computed and word lists were constructed. These newly constructed Hindi word lists were administered to 45 cochlear implantees (4.1 to 9 years of age); one year post implantation. Subjects were instructed to listen to the words and repeat them. Responses were scored as number of words correctly repeated. Results: Cochlear implantees were able to show lexical effects of difficulty, i.e. they achieved higher scores for easy words than those for hard words. However, they were not able to show the same effect for word type. Conclusions: The newly constructed Hindi word lists appear to be valid lists in assessment of speech recognition abilities of children with hearing impairment using cochlear implants.

Background: As per census’2011, in India, there are 15, 94,249 children with hearing impairment below 18 years of age. A current method in treating children with hearing impairment is cochlear implantation. The use of cochlear implants aids in improving auditory detection, discrimination, identification and speech recognition. Although, speech recognition is a primary outcome measure in cochlear implantees, there is a paucity of word lists or tests to assess speech recognition abilities, both in local languages in general and Hindi in particular. Methods: In order to construct word lists comprising of monosyllabic and multisyllabic, easy and hard words, language samples from children (3 - 5 years of age, n = 120) were collected in order to create a database to select stimuli from. The frequency of occurrence and neighborhood density for the words selected from this database was then computed and word lists were constructed. These newly constructed Hindi word lists were administered to 45 cochlear implantees (4.1 to 9 years of age); one year post implantation. Subjects were instructed to listen to the words and repeat them. Responses were scored as number of words correctly repeated. Results: Cochlear implantees were able to show lexical effects of difficulty, i.e. they achieved higher scores for easy words than those for hard words. However, they were not able to show the same effect for word type. Conclusions: The newly constructed Hindi word lists appear to be valid lists in assessment of speech recognition abilities of children with hearing impairment using cochlear implants.