What can be expected from a late cochlear implantation?

Speech Intelligibility as a Predictor of Cochlear Implant Outcome in Prelingually Deafened Adults

“…In general, it was shown that patients with intelligible speech achieve better postimplant speech perception scores than patients with less intelligible speech. This finding is in agreement with trends observed in the literature (Loundon et al 2000;Kaplan et al 2003;Klop et al 2007;Kos et al 2009). More specifically, our data showed that postimplant phoneme perception scores increased linearly with preimplant intelligibility, expressed as the summary measure INTELL.…”

“…Until the midϪ1990s, adult patients with prelingual deafness were considered poor candidates for cochlear implantation because of limited benefit in terms of speech perception (Clark et al 1987;Tong et al 1988; Working Group on Communication Aids for the Hearing-Impaired 1991; Skinner et al 1992;Waltzman et al 1992;Zwolan et al 1996;Snik et al 1997). In contrast, recent studies using newer generations of implant technology have reported modest improvements in average open-set speech perception scores after implantation for this group of patients (Sarant et al 1994;Manrique et al 1995;Waltzman & Cohen 1999;Schramm et al 2002;Waltzman et al 2002;Kaplan et al 2003;Teoh et al 2004a;Klop et al 2007;Santarelli et al 2008;Yoshida et al 2008;Kos et al 2009). Although average speech perception results with a cochlear implant remain poorer than those for postlingually deafened adults, interindividual variability is generally large.…”

“…The idea that the presence of preimplant oral language skills may be important for postimplant success has been supported by data from various studies with prelingually deafened adults and children implanted beyond the sensitive period for language development (Osberger et al 1998;Loundon et al 2000;Kaplan et al 2003;Watson et al 2003;Klop et al 2007;Kos et al 2009). Although large interindividual differences in speech perception outcomes with a cochlear implant have been reported within groups of orally communicating patients (Schramm et al 2002;Waltzman et al 2002;Yoshida et al 2008), several studies have shown that, as a group, patients who use oral communication achieve better speech perception results after implantation than patients who do not (Osberger et al 1998;Loundon et al 2000;Kaplan et al 2003;Watson et al 2003).…”

“…In particular, it has been observed that groups of patients whose preimplant speech was judged to be intelligible seemed to achieve greater postimplant benefit than groups of patients with less intelligible speech (Loundon et al 2000;Kaplan et al 2003). Kos et al (2009), comparing the effect of cochlear implantation in two groups of nonorally communicating patients, found that users of Cued Speech achieved significantly better speech perception results with the implant than users of sign language. They argued that the better results for the Cued Speech users must be explained by the patients' previous knowledge of the structure of oral language as promoted by the use of Cued Speech.…”

Cochlear Implantation in Adults with Prelingual Deafness - A Case Report

“…Adults with prelingual deafness and/or limited listening experience should not be the reasons for not continuing with the cochlear implantation. They do have the possibilities to develop oral language even in late implantation [4]. Our patient was implanted late which was at the age of 31 and had no listening experience until he was fitted with the hearing aid at the age of 16.…”