Evaluation of cochlear implant benefit with auditory cortical evoked potentials

Endogenous P300 and exogenous slow vertex potentials were obtained with tone and speech stimuli in a group of five children using a cochlear implant (CI) with poor speech recognition (group A) and compared with those from another group of five children using a CI with good speech recognition (group B). The responses were also compared to those of children with normal hearing (n= 14) and a group of adult CI users (n=9). N1 and P2 latencies of CI group A and group B were prolonged compared to those of normally-hearing children. In group A, P300 was present when contrasts with tone stimuli were used. When speech stimuli were used, P300 potentials were absent or delayed. P300 potentials obtained in group B were no different from those obtained in normally-hearing children. It is suggested that the poor results evoked with speech stimuli in contrast to those evoked with pure-tone stimuli in group A are due to the immaturity of (sub) cortical generators associated with acoustical and phonetic processing. In contrast to the children in group B, all children in group A suffered from congenital deafness.