Bimodal fitting or bilateral implantation?

This paper summarises findings from studies that evaluated the benefits of bimodal fitting (combining a hearing aid and a cochlear implant in opposite ears) or bilateral cochlear implantation, relative to unilateral implantation, for children (Ching et al., 2007). On average, the size of binaural speech intelligibility advantages due to redundancy and head shadow was similar for the two bilateral conditions. An added advantage of bimodal fitting was that the low-frequency cues provided by acoustic hearing complemented the high-frequency cues conveyed by electric hearing in perception of voice and music. Some children with bilateral cochlear implants were able to use spatial separation between speech and noise to improve speech perception in noise. This is possibly a combined effect of the directional microphones in their implant systems and their ability to use spatial cues. The evidence to date supports the provision of hearing in two ears as the standard of care.