Deactivating Cochlear Implant Electrodes Based on Pitch Information for Users of the ACE Strategy

Abstract

There is a wide range in performance for cochlear implant (CI) users and there is some evidence to suggest that implant fitting can be modified to improve performance if electrodes that do not provide distinct pitch information are de-activated. However, improvements in performance may not be the same for users of all CI devices; in particular for those with Cochlear devices using n-of-m strategies (ACE or SPEAK).The goal of this research was to determine for users of Cochlear devices (CP810 or CP900 series processors) if speech perception could be improved when indiscriminable electrodes were de-activated and this was also compared to when the same number of discriminable electrodes were de-activated.A cross-over study was conducted with 13 adult CI users who received experimental maps with de-activated channels for a minimum of 2 months and these were compared to optimised clinical maps.The findings showed that there were no significant benefits of electrode deactivation on speech perception and that there was a significant deterioration in spectro-temporal ripple perception when electrodes were switched off. There were no significant differences between de-activation of discriminable or indiscriminable electrodes.These findings suggest that electrode de-activation with n-of-m strategies may not be beneficial.

The effect of language, spatial factors, masker type and memory span on speech‐in‐noise thresholds in sequential bilingual children

“…Speech intelligibility in sequential bilinguals was assessed by obtaining SRTs (at 50% speech intelligibility) using an adaptive up‐down procedure. The used paradigm is an adapted version of the Children's Coordinate Response Measure (CCRM) described in (Vickers, Degun, Canas, Stainsby & Vanpoucke, ) which were recorded in both Swedish and English. Target sentences of the form “Show the dog where the <color> <number> is!” in English, and “Visa hunden var den <färg> <nummer> är!” in Swedish, were recorded using the same Swedish‐English speaking early bilingual male (aged 31) with Swedish as a first language English as a strong second language.…”

“…Speech intelligibility in sequential bilinguals was assessed by obtaining SRTs (at 50% speech intelligibility) using an adaptive up-down procedure. The used paradigm is an adapted version of the Children's Coordinate Response Measure (CCRM) described in (Vickers, Degun, Canas, Stainsby & Vanpoucke, 2016) which were recorded in both Swedish and English. Target sentences of the form "Show the dog where the <color> <number> is!"…”

Comparison of the Spectral-Temporally Modulated Ripple Test With the Arizona Biomedical Institute Sentence Test in Cochlear Implant Users

“…Recently, a modified version of the traditional spectral ripple test, the Spectral-temporally Modulated Ripple Test (SMRT; Aronoff & Landsberger 2013) has been used in a number of studies (Vickers et al 2016; Holden et al 2016; Aronoff et al 2016b; Kirby et al 2015; Zhou 2017). The SMRT uses a spectral ripple with a ripple phase that drifts over time.…”

Effects of electrode deactivation on speech recognition in multichannel cochlear implant recipients

“…Results from Vickers and colleagues argue that site deactivation for n-of-m strategies (e.g., SPEAK, ACE) is not beneficial when choosing stimulation sites based on pitch-ranking tasks. It is hypothesized that, for such strategies, only a given number of sites ( n) are stimulated in one cycle and therefore it may be possible to deactivate many sites without consequence (Vickers, Degun, Canas, Stainsby, & Vanpoucke, 2016). It is also important to consider that, for n-of-m strategies, a CIS strategy (8 channels, 8 maxima) will process a greater proportion of quiet sounds than a typical ACE strategy (20 channels, 8 maxima).…”