Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 4, 2026
Systematic Hearing Performance Evaluation Process for Adolescents with Cochlear Implantation at Early Ages
Published on: March 24, 2023
Measuring communicative performance with the FAPCI instrument: preliminary results from normal hearing and cochlear
James H Clark1, Pooja Aggarwal, Nae-Yuh Wang
1Department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA.
Objective:
To develop preliminary "growth curves" of Functioning after Pediatric Cochlear Implantation (FAPCI) scores using a cross-sectional sample of normal hearing children and to compare these curves to trajectories of FAPCI scores in children receiving cochlear implants.
Methods:
Quantile regression was used to develop growth curves from the FAPCI scores of a cross-sectional sample of 82 normal hearing children (age range 7 months-5 years). Trajectories of FAPCI scores from a longitudinal cohort of 75 children with cochlear implants (age range 1-5 years) were compared to these growth curves.
Results:
FAPCI scores were positively associated with increasing age in normal hearing children with a rapid increase in scores observed at earlier ages followed by a plateau at age 3 years. FAPCI trajectories for cochlear-implanted children varied with age at implantation and did not reach a plateau until age 5-6 years.
Conclusion:
Normal hearing children demonstrated increasing FAPCI scores with age, and these preliminary growth curves allow for the interpretation of a cochlear-implanted child's FAPCI scores in comparison to normal hearing children. Additional research using a larger, longitudinal cohort of normal hearing children will be needed to develop definitive normative FAPCI trajectories.
