Change of Phonation Control After Cochlear Implantation

Abstract

As expected, the voice quality of the prelingually deafened children was significantly worse than that of the postlingually deafened adults. After cochlear implantation, the children significantly improved their short-term and long-term F0 and amplitude variability. In adults, no significant improvement was detected. We suppose that the improvement is a consequence not only of the acquired hearing control but also of the adaptation ability of neuromuscular phonation control and the maturing of these control mechanisms in children. In adults, better phonation quality in general and lesser improvement after the implantation can be the results of well-developed and stable phonation patterns.

Voice Analysis of Postlingually Deaf Adults Pre- and Postcochlear Implantation

“…13,19,20 Another study reported no statistically significant findings on F0 values and their variability after CI in 11 adults. 11 These studies of postlingually deaf adults have mostly addressed aspects of acoustic analysis, placing no emphasis on perceptual evaluation in their results.…”

“…9 When these patients acquire a hearing impairment at some point in life, however, they can develop vocal changes because of the lack of monitoring provided by auditory feedback. 8,10,11 Auditory feedback may be provided by the use of auditory prosthetics devices (hearing aids). However, children or adults with severe or profound hearing loss will often not benefit from hearing aids.…”

A voz do deficiente auditivo: revisão bibliográfica

“…Entretanto, indivíduos com alterações no sistema auditivo, principalmente nos casos em que a perda auditiva é classificada como severa e profunda, podem apresentar aumento da média de f 0 e não ouvir a própria voz em decorrência da ausência de feedback auditivo 2 . As características vocais podem variar de acordo com o grau da perda auditiva, o tipo de dispositivo eletrônico utilizado, a idade de adaptação do aparelho de amplificação sonora individual (AASI) ou ativação do implante coclear (IC), bem como dependendo do período em que a perda auditiva ocorreu, pré ou pós-lingual 3 .…”

The influence of the auditory prosthesis type on deaf children's voice quality

“…According to Teston [21], this is one of the best indicators, along with shimmer, of the recovering of hearing perception, being one of the parameters that continues to present several differences in relation with normality [22,23]. We find authors [15,20] who state that jitter is one of the parameters that most immediately reaches the values of normality after implantation. Van Lierde et al [23] compared this parameter in subjects using hearing aids (n = 6) or implants (n = 9) and determined that hearing aid users presented jitter values higher than normality (jitt = 0.76%), whereas implant users presented diminished values for the same parameter (jitt = 0.33%).…”

“…Other authors state that, after previous studies, the F 0 parameter was about 20% higher in deaf children [16] or that F 0 increased when children stopped receiving hearing feedback with the cochlear implant [17,18]. Other authors, however, have not detected significant improvement in F 0 values despite the use of the implant [11,19,20].…”