“…Further, the cross‐modal compensation observed at the behavioral level is accompanied by plastic changes in the visual and auditory networks involved during visual and audiovisual speech integration (Giraud et al ., 2001b; Lagleyre, Rouger, Laborde et al ., 2006; Lee, Giraud, Kang et al ., 2007). Lastly, our behavioral data in CI deaf patients suggest a synergy between vision and audition during the first years after implantation, leading to an increase of performance in each single modality – at least for men, whose speechreading processing abilities immediately post‐implant was poorer than that of women (Strelnikov, 2008). Similarly, such a synergetic phenomenon can also be observed at the cortical level, as expressed by a progressive increase in the activity level of the visual and auditory areas in response to stimulation by auditory words following the recovery of speech comprehension (Giraud et al , 2001b).…”